Ethan Church
by dryler
Summary: When Bella accepts an offer to write the biography of a severely reclusive author, the old, dying man she’s presented with and the young, too perfect man she meets while there convince her she’s missing some very important parts of the story. E/B, AU.
1. The Letters

**Full Summary: **After receiving an invitation to write the biography of the severely reclusive author Ethan Church, Bella develops a reluctant obsession with his novels and by extension him. When she accepts his offer, the old, dying man she's presented with and the young, too perfect man she comes across on the nearly empty estate have her convinced she's missing some very important parts of the story.

**A/N:** Beta'd by Miss Poison (Twilighted) and Feisty Y. Beden (FFn).

Part of this story (going to meet a reclusive author to write their biography) was inspired by _The Thirteenth Tale_ by Diane Setterfield.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything Twilight or The Thirteenth Tale. No copyright infringement is intended.

**The Letters**

I've never understood people's fear of death. It's something to be avoided, certainly, but it's hardly going to hurt. Death is normal, natural, and inevitable. So you wouldn't be alive anymore, it's not like you're going to care; you'll be dead.

It's not death that should be feared, it's dying. Dying is pain, and waiting. The amounts vary each time, but there's really no such thing as a good combination, unless you don't have either. I've seen people dying, a friend of mine, back when I was too young to understand what death really means, and later both of my long since widowed grandmothers.

I don't mind reading about death, but I don't like reading about dying. That's why I turned down the chance to translate his books when the publishing firm I work for released a new set of editions two years ago.

For me to properly translate a book I have to _really_ read it, understand it completely. I have to be able to carry over all the nuances buried in the words. I've never read an Ethan Church novel, and I don't plan to.

All of his characters are dying; emotionally, mentally, and on a few occasions physically. The books are about life, but it's a bloody, brutal, grim version of life that slowly slips away, as the characters lose themselves. Nobody ever gets what they want, unless it's some twisted farce of what they desired. Everybody's got a monster inside them, and nobody can keep it under control forever.

As I said, I've never read any of his work, but everybody else has. He should ask one of them.

I glance down at the letter that's laying flat on my kitchen table, skimming over the words written in dark flowing ink that I've already read through a dozen times, at least.

_**Dear Miss Isabella Swan,**_

_**Given that you work for the company that publishes my books, I'm going to assume you're familiar, at least to an extent, with my name. So, I'll skip my self-introduction, and move on to the matter at hand.**_

_**I have developed an interest in telling the story people seem the most eager to hear, that of my own life. To this end, I wish to commission you to write my biography.**_

_**I'll have to ask that you come to stay at my home, so that I can tell you my story in person. You will, of course, be compensated for your time and energy, but that can be discussed later.**_

_**As you may be aware, I'm not exactly known for being forthcoming with personal information. I understand that may cause you to question the validity of what I tell you, but I give you my word, my promise, that everything I say will be the truth. I intend to tell you my real story, for as long as you're willing to listen.**_

_**Sincerely,**_

_**Ethan Church**_

In many ways I'm still just as surprised by it now as I was the first time I read it. I can't think of a single reason why he would ask me, or why he would even be aware of me.

Whatever his reasoning, I'm not at all qualified. Aside from my complete lack of experience with his novels, I'm not a biographer, or a writer, or even a journalist. I'm a translator. I don't create. I take other people's stories, break them apart word by word, and reassemble them in another language. Unless he intends to dictate his biography to me, and have me put it into French, or Italian, I can't see a reason for me to become involved. A part of me wants to be, though. It's a very small, clearly irrational part, but it's big enough for me to feel that it wants to, almost desperately.

I mentally push that part aside, as I dig out some stationery for a reply.

_**Dear Mr Ethan Church,**_

_**I can't help, but think a misunderstanding has taken place. I'm not an author, nor am I in any other profession that makes me qualified to write your biography. I would be more than happy to give you the names of some people who would love to help you. Given your popularity, I doubt it will be difficult for you to find someone who is interested, as well as qualified. I wish you the best of luck with your endeavour.**_

_**Best wishes,**_

_**Isabella Swan**_

I leave it in an addressed envelope on the little table by the door, ready to be mailed out with my bill payments on my way to work tomorrow morning. After that, I do my best to put the entire matter out of my mind.

00000

The smell hits me as soon as I push open the door; musty old books in a musty old shop. I love this smell. I love this store. Every Saturday morning I walk here to browse the seemingly endless shelves. Romances, mysteries, biographies, nature guides complete with old prints of flowers, bugs, and animals. It all appeals to me in some way, enough to aimlessly leaf through the pages anyway.

Henry, the elderly owner of the shop, looks up when the bell over the door rings, and gives me a friendly smile.

"Good morning, Bella."

"Morning." I smile, before making my way towards the far aisle.

I'm focusing on the feeling of my fingers gliding over the uneven row of book spines, paying little attention to the titles my eyes pass over, when I suddenly stop moving without any conscious thought of doing so. My fingers have stopped on a dark blue spine with raised silver writing that reads _Fading Moon_, and then in smaller, but identical print below that, it says _Ethan Church_. My fingers twitch against the binding, fighting the urge to pull it from the shelf.

That irrational urge I had to accept his offer flares to life again in my chest, but this time it wants to look at this book, his book. It practically vibrates with the need to look at the words printed across its pages.

"Couldn't hurt to look," I murmur to myself, trying to dismiss the growing feeling in my chest as I pull it off the shelf. It's just a book.

But it's not _just_ a book. It reaches inside me with the first sentence, leaving something large and heavy in my chest that presses against my lungs, making my heart feel tight. I don't like this. I want to shut the creased paper cover on this feeling, on these words. I want to make it stop, but this thing in my chest is pulsing and twisting, very much alive. I can't stop. I can't even think of stopping, because a part of me is in the book, just like a part of the book is in me.

I read the entire thing sitting on the dingy carpet of the book shop aisle. The edges of the books and shelves dig into my back, but I barely notice. When I finish, I stare dumbly at the last page, while this _thing_ in my chest loses substance. It no longer has a form; it swirls fluidly in my rib-cage. It lessens, disperses through my body, but it doesn't completely go away. There's a bit of a hum that remains.

I flip through the last few incidental pages and shut the back cover. There's no picture, no brief summary about the life of the person who's done this to me. Ethan Church is only faceless words, but he doesn't have to be.

My mind brings up the image of his letter, with its sharp measured handwriting, asking me to meet him and hear his story. I shake my head to dispel the image and stiffly stand. I have no business playing biographer.

My eyes move to the gap on the shelf where the book in my hand belongs. My hand goes back up to the shelf, and before I can even think about it, I'm pulling out more books. I end up with five, all with _Ethan Church_ written on the spines. I grab my bag and start off for the front of the store before I can think too much about this.

I plunk them down on the counter, and freeze when I glance out the window. The street lights have come on, casting circles of yellow light on the dark street.

"I thought I was going to have to go looking for you," Henry laughs, pulling the books across the counter towards him.

"Sorry," I mumble, although I doubt it's audible.

"Fan of Ethan Church, huh?"

"No." I think I hate him. Nobody should be able to reach deep inside someone like that without giving something of themselves in return.

"Are you alright, Bella?"

"I don't know." It's terrifyingly true. I don't know how I feel. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know what just happened. I feel like I'm losing control of myself.

My stomach growls and I realize I'm starving and my throat is scratchy and dry.

"I'm about to close up for the night. Why don't you come over to Betty's with me?" he asks with concern. I nod. He hands me my change, grabs his coat off the rack, and I follow him out. We make a beeline for the diner across the street. After I order, I don't say another word all night.

00000

I wake up dazed. I'm mildly nauseous from oversleeping, and the light pouring through my bedroom window is falling right in my eyes. It's 2:04 pm. I couldn't fall asleep last night. The stack of books on my kitchen table was practically begging me to read them. There are red crescent indentations on my palms from holding my hands in tight fists to prevent myself from getting up.

I shouldn't have bought those books. I should have left them in the store, at the diner, on the street, anywhere, but here. Now I want to read them. No, now I _need_ to read them. I feel like I'm going insane, like my mind isn't my own. Books can't do this to you. It's ridiculous. Maybe I'm working too much. Maybe I'm not sleeping enough. Maybe I need a vacation.

I curl onto my side, facing away from the window, and pull my bedding tighter around me. If I stay here, I can't read them, but I can't stay here forever. That doesn't mean I can't try though. I drift into a deep, dreamless sleep within minutes.

At some point the nausea must have morphed into hunger, because I wake up starving, thirsty, and I really need to pee. I have to get up.

Throwing back the covers, I glare at the clock. It's 6:23 pm. What the hell is wrong with me?

I enter the kitchen, fighting against myself not to look at the table, at the books. I'll make myself some lunch, eat on the balcony, do the small pile of dishes that have built up next to the sink, and then call my mother.

I put on the kettle and get out the stuff to make a sandwich, but one look out the window tells me the balcony is out. It's pouring rain... in Phoenix. It's a bizarre day all around, I guess.

So, I'll sit in the living room, no big deal. I'm leaning against the counter, waiting for the kettle to boil, and the toaster to pop, but my mind is otherwise occupied.

You know that feeling you get, the sense that somebody's watching you? The back of your neck tingles and you can almost feel their gaze pressing into your back. That's what I'm feeling, except it's coming from the books. It's like they're watching me, silently waiting for something we both know is inevitable. Fantastic, I'm being stalked by books. I really am losing my mind.

I should go out somewhere, get away from here for a while, but I can't for the life of me think of a place to go.

00000

There's a dull pinkish light creeping across the white walls of my living room. Sunrise. I flip through the last few incidental pages and shut the back cover. This one doesn't have a picture or biography either. I look around the room, trying to get my bearings. It's Monday, I'm sure of it. I have to work today.

I sigh as I collect my plate with the half-eaten sandwich, and my cold cup of tea, and take them into the kitchen.

"I'll have to call in sick," I say accusingly, glaring at the stack of books. I need sleep, and food, and very possibly professional help. I put the book in my hand in a new pile, with the one I read in the book shop. I've read two of five, and the second had the same effect on me as the first, but it didn't fade the same way at the end. There's a slight tingling, an almost physical presence in my chest. This time it left a little more of that living energy behind.

Is this feeling going to get stronger every time? I have three more here, but how many are out there in total? Dozens, I think. How much stronger can this feeling get? Would it go away if I met him? I shake my head. I have no business writing; that's not what I do.

I eat the rest of my sandwich, and make a quick call into work, before crawling back into bed. I need a shower, but at the moment I really don't care.

Despite this thing swirling around in my chest, I fall asleep quickly. Clearly, going crazy is exhausting.

00000

I don't even try to fight it when I wake up sometime around four in the afternoon, although I do eat before I start the third book.

The fourth one is done by noon on Tuesday. I told work I have the flu, but this is so much worse. I sleep too much, eat too little, and I can't seem to concentrate on anything, but those damn books. They pull me in, make me read them, and then leave me feeling... haunted. Whatever this thing in my chest is, it's gotten stronger, more present with each book.

I take a hot bath, and it's like torture, trying to force myself to lie there and not think about those books and the faceless man who creates them. I'm extremely unsuccessful.

Does he write them out by hand in that clear, flowing writing of his? Black ink words on thick, pure white paper.

I close my eyes and sink lower into the water, trying to make a list of the things I have to do over the week. I can see the list in my head, but it's all written in his cursive. Suddenly the image shifts into the first page of the first book of his I read, written out by his hand.

I groan and slide down until my head's fully underwater. My hair glides around my face as I shake my head underwater, trying to dislodge all these insidious things that have wormed their way into my brain.

My head breaks the surface, and I gasp for breath. For a second, all I can think about is my body's need for air, but soon enough the feeling in my chest starts to creep back into my awareness. With a sigh, I pull the stopper out of the tub and climb out of the rapidly draining water.

I can't be the only one who reacts like this. Maybe this intense connection is why his books are so popular. Maybe this is normal. Maybe there's a way to get rid of it.

I dress quickly while my computer boots up, not even bothering to towel off my dripping hair before I start my research.

Several hours of scouring various types of fan sites later, and I've learned almost nothing. What I have found, is that there's very little out there to learn.

His first book was published in 1938. He's written forty-eight novels. He never does interviews. Nobody knows what he looks like, where he comes from, how old he is, or even what state he lives in. Apparently nobody knows anything, but everybody's got a theory; a collective of writers using one pseudonym, a serial killer in jail, a man in witness protection from the mob, or possibly a criminal on the run.

A lot of it's kind of funny in a way, overzealous and obsessive, but harmless. Some of it's a little scary, but I'm walking around with a non-corporeal thing in my chest after reading a couple novels, so I doubt I'm in a position to judge anyone at the moment.

I scan through hundreds of fan reviews and reactions. Everybody talks about how moving they are, how personal it feels, but not one person describes anything like what I've been feeling. Of course, I wouldn't admit to this feeling if I was paid, so I guess it isn't completely conclusive that I'm the only one. I'm starting to think I might be, though.

00000

The fifth book is done by Wednesday morning. I wake up on my couch in the evening. My neck is at an odd, uncomfortable angle, and the arm under my torso has fallen asleep long ago. I lie still anyway, hoping it's all been a dream brought on by my body's discomfort. The illusion doesn't last long. My eyes land on the old green book on my coffee table, and my brain stops trying to tell me the feeling in my chest is coming from the arm underneath me pressing up against my rib-cage, and I know it's all real.

I immediately set to work gathering up the books in an old backpack, and shove it all into the back of the highest shelf in my hall closet.

I'm going to work tomorrow, and I'm staying clear of all stores containing books for the near future. This, whatever this is, needs to end.

00000

Work on Thursday goes much better than I thought; of course I did have exceptionally low expectations. I can't concentrate as well as I need to, and this thing is still in my chest, still present, but I'm at work, back to my normal schedule, and that's a start.

I'm feeling pretty confident about today being a solid first step back towards normal, until I get home and find a large envelope in my mailbox.

It's addressed to me in the same stiff, blockish lettering as the last envelope was. It has the same return address as well, a lawyer's office in Chicago. I wait until I get inside my apartment to open it, but just barely.

Just like last time, everything inside the envelope is written by him. On top of the odd assortment of papers is a folded piece of thick stationery with a single sentence inside.

_**I assure you there has been no misunderstanding.**_

_**EC**_

Beneath that is a plane ticket for Seattle, and a cheque for three thousand dollars with "Extraneous Travel Expenses" written on the memo line, and a small green post-it note on the back that says "It's cold here." How much does he think a couple sweaters and a coat cost? Three thousand dollars, apparently. There's also a handwritten set of papers telling me what I need to bring, what I need to do when I land, and asking for complete secrecy in regard to his location.

I know I should be angry. I told him I wasn't interested, and he basically ignored me, but all I can think is: _I'm going to Seattle on Saturday._ And the thing in my chest does a little flip.


	2. Ethan Church

**A/N:** Beta'd by Miss Poison (Twilighted) and Feisty Y. Beden (FFn and Ravelry).

**Ethan Church **

I take another deep breath, attempting to find comfort in the stale, too warm air inside the car. It doesn't help. I need real air. I need oxygen, but the rain pouring down the darkly tinted windows makes fresh air an impossibility. It also means all I can see of the world flying by outside is the indistinct shapes and shadows of trees by the side of the road.

The sporadic twinges in my chest only seem to increase my anxiety the further we drive.

I glance briefly at my carry-on bag resting on the seat next to me and contemplate pulling out a book to distract myself, but I know there's really no point. I'd been optimistic when I packed it. I'd put in a variety of novels from the _To Be Read_ shelf on my bookcase, and of course, a few choice selections from the stack of books that lives on my bedside table, the ones I can read over and over without them losing their appeal, the literary equivalents of a security blanket. It wasn't until I got to the airport that I truly accepted the futility of bringing them.

There in the airport kiosk, between a wall of personalized key chains and a display of shot glasses with _Arizona_ written across them in yellow block letters, on a spinning rack of books was _The Last Days of Summer_ with _Ethan Church_ printed across the glossy new covers. I didn't stand a chance.

I started reading it as I waited for my flight to board, and I became so absorbed in it that I nearly missed my plane. I don't know who I sat with or what the inside of the plane looked like. I finished before we landed, but it left me mentally exhausted and thoroughly distracted by the slowly ebbing pulse of energy in my chest. By the time I met with the driver that had been sent, I could barely respond properly to his polite pleasantries.

The driver makes another turn, and suddenly the previous pounding of heavy water droplets assaulting the roof gives way to an occasional light spattering. I angle my head to look around the empty passenger seat out the front window. We're on a relatively dry dirt road barely wider than the car, flanked on both sides by impenetrable rows of tall trees. The treetops must be blocking out the rain.

With a sudden desperation, I open the window next to me. Cool damp air swirls in, ruffling my hair against my neck. My eyes slide shut as I take a series of deep breaths. It smells like rot, and earth, and rain. I let my head fall back against the back of the seat as the anxiety retreats 'til it's just a mild fluttering in the pit of my stomach.

Before too long I have to shut my window, because we're driving out from under the cover of the closely packed trees into an old fashioned circular drive. The driver says something about taking my things around back before he gets out to open my door. I grab my carry-on and quickly jog to the covered front porch. The car pulls around the side of the house, and I'm alone with my erratic heartbeat and my pulsing chest.

There's a large stone fountain in the middle of the drive, a deep circular base with three bowl-like tiers rising up from it. It's almost completely overgrown with viny plants and dark green moss, and the water from the rain overflows from one tier to the next in continuous sheets. It's beautifully dilapidated in the same way that the imposing three-story red-brick building is. Neither is broken or abandoned, just overgrown with thriving spindly green life.

I take a few more deep breaths, steeling myself, before I knock on the door. It opens almost immediately to reveal a petite woman with light grey hair, probably in her seventies. She smiles widely at my look of surprise and says, "I heard the car pull up. I thought you were going to try to make a run for it." Her laugh is warm and infectious. If it weren't for the unrelenting thing in my chest, I think I'd feel at ease.

She moves aside and motions me into the large front hall before taking my wet coat.

"Welcome to Ferndale, Miss Swan."

"Please call me Bella." Her hand is surprisingly strong when I shake it.

"You can call me Adelaide. Mr. Church is waiting for you in the morning room." We walk down high-ceilinged hallways to a room at the back of the house.

"Come by the kitchen when you're finished, and we'll get you settled in," she instructs quietly. Her hand briefly touches my shoulder in a comforting gesture, and then her footsteps retreat down the hall.

My hand reaches out to grasp the doorknob, but once my fingers wrap around it fear bubbles up in my stomach, becoming lodged in my throat. I'm afraid that if I walk into this room, and come face to face with this man, the thing in my chest will pulse and grow until there's nothing left of me. I'm afraid I'll be consumed. Utterly, irrecoverably consumed. I still want to open the door.

The hinges creak slightly as I push the door into the room. I briefly wonder if it'll hurt to lose myself to this feeling, but the thought gets pushed aside as soon as I step inside.

The appearance of the man sitting on the couch on the other side of the room stops me in my tracks. His frailty is shocking. He has pale, delicate looking skin, white wispy hair, and his hunched frame is dwarfed by the plush couch and pillows surrounding him. Logically I knew he couldn't be young, but the power of his words seems to have led me to unknowingly expect someone with the physical power of youth, despite the rational impossibility.

"Take a seat, won't you," he says with an indulgent smile. My cheeks flush when I realize I've been staring.

"I'm sorry," I mutter quietly, walking over to a chair across from him. I take a deep breath as I sit down and wonder why this thing in my chest feels the same as it did on the other side of the door.

"Don't worry about it. If I made a habit of meeting people, I'm sure I'd be used to it. I take it I'm not what you were expecting?"

"Oh... umm."

"I'm not offended. You're not what I was expecting either, Miss Swan."

"What were you expecting?"

"I thought you'd be older."

"I skipped a few grades."

"Well, I did expect you to be smart." He chuckles quietly, reaching over to pick up the teacup and saucer on the side table. The white and blue china makes a tinkling sound in his shaking hands. As he lifts the cup towards his face I notice the patches of old burn scars on the back of his hands spreading up under the cuffs of his shirt.

"Are you alright?"

"Well... I'm dying, but outside of that I'm very well, thank you."

"You're dying?"

"Yes, yes I am. That's why I need you to write this book for me."

"But why now? I don't mean to sound rude, but why didn't you start it earlier when you could've done it yourself?"

"It didn't have an end earlier. I can't stand a story without an end."

"And the end is...?"

"My death, of course. I can't very well finish a book when I'm dead, now can I?"

"But why me? All the authors out there that would've jumped at this chance... why would you ask me?"

"I've come across your translations. There are a few in the library, actually. You're very faithful to the text, and that's what I want. It just so happens that in this case _I'm_ the text."

"You want me to... translate you into words?"

He looks off to the side thoughtfully, and then turns back to me with a smile. "Yes, I suppose I do."

"This is very unusual," I comment with an uncomfortable laugh.

"And you haven't even heard my story yet." He takes a deep, raspy breath and leans back further against the couch, resting quietly for a moment. His right hand is still shaking slightly, while the left lies limply on his lap, both mottled with scars. He seems tired already, and we've only just started speaking.

"I'm sorry if this sounds patronizing, but... are you sure you're up for this?"

"Oh, yes. I'm better in the mornings, which is when we'll be having our little sessions. Some days I have more energy than others, so we'll just play it by ear. The rest of the day is yours to do with as you please. Has Adelaide given you a tour yet?"

"No, but I think that's next."

He nods. "You're welcome to explore. I recommend the library and the gardens, when it's not raining, of course. Do you like nature? I certainly hope you do; that's really all that's out here."

"I like nature just fine."

"Good. There's a small town nearby, Forks, and a slightly larger town past that, Port Angeles. If you decide you want to make the trip you can talk to Adelaide, and she'll set you up with a car or call the driver to come up for you, whichever you prefer."

"Thank you."

"I think that's everything for today. Do you have any questions for me?"

"Umm... it's not really a question, but I have a cheque with the rest of the money you sent me," I say, digging it out of my carry-on.

"I sent it because I intended for you to have it." He waves his right hand in front of him, indicating that he won't take it.

"But I didn't need most of it."

"Think of it as a down payment until the lucrative publishing contract is signed."

"It's over two thousand dollars."

"Which will be nothing compared to the money you'll get from your future deal, I'm sure. Keep it, I insist."

00000

I walk down the halls after Adelaide in a bit of a daze, barely paying attention to the rooms she points out to me. I'd imagined many possible scenarios since I got his second letter, but a dying old man with no discernable effect on the thing in my chest isn't close to any of them. Why would I feel this intense connection to his written words, but nothing towards him? Will I feel something when he starts telling his own story?

After the tour, she leaves me alone in my second floor bedroom to get settled in before dinner. It's full of dark wood antiques and pale blue fabrics. The view outside the large windows is the vast backyard, rain-soaked green under a cloudy grey sky.

I eat dinner with Adelaide at the rough wooden table in the kitchen while she recounts how she clung to her mother's skirts for weeks when they first came to live here after her father died in the Second World War. I feel like I've been transported back to a different time, a different place that exists outside the world I grew up in. I already miss the sun.

00000

As I walk out the washroom door, another crack of thunder sounds; the window glass shakes in its frame at the end of the hall. I take a few steps in the dark towards my bedroom door before the thing in my chest starts pounding like a frightened heartbeat, but the sensation is almost completely drowned out by the panic that starts coursing through me.

I have the feeling of being watched again, but this time it's not a passive gaze, waiting patiently for the inevitable. It isn't until I hear the quiet rumbling noise that I realize the feeling is predatory. I flatten my back against the wall, staring into the dark corner by the window where the noise seems to be coming from. I stand perfectly still, my heart thumping in my chest, echoed by the thing lodged next to it.

Lightning flashes outside the window, briefly illuminating the end of the hall. The light spreads partway into the corner, and for a second I see a hard jaw-line, long neck, and, lower, a clenched fist all stark white and tense, but it's gone in an instant, even before the blinding light gives way to the country dark.

My hand frantically searches the wall for the light switch somewhere behind me, never taking my eyes off the corner, even though I can't see anything now. The lights flick on seconds later. The corner and the rest of the hallway are completely empty. If there's nothing there now, there mustn't have been anything there in the first place. Clearly staying in this house, in this storm, at this time of night is causing me to imagine things. My mind flashes to the nightmares and waking dreams Adelaide said she used to have when she first moved here as a little girl.

An awkward chuckle escapes my lips, and the slightly hysterical edge prompts me to pull myself away from the wall and continue on to my room. Even with my dismissal of whatever just happened I still don't take my eyes off the corner until my bedroom door is firmly shut.


	3. Ghost

**A/N: **Beta'd by Miss Poison (Twilighted) and Feisty Y. Beden (FFn and Ravelry).

**Ghost**

The thing in my chest eventually fades to a dull murmur, but my tired mind still won't let me sleep. I replay the events in the hall over and over again until I'm not even sure what happened, if _anything_ happened. By the time I wake up from fitful sleep for the third time I'm convinced it was all a dream. Even so, I can't let go of the image of the pure white fist. I want to understand the emotion behind it. Was it pain? Anger? Frustration? Whatever it was, it was strong.

I wake up for the final time a little before six. I feel groggy and disoriented. My late night conviction has crumbled back into doubt, and I flip flop between thinking it was a dream and it was reality while I get ready to go downstairs.

I hesitate in front of the door, trying to decide whether I should be scared of what I might find on the other side, or amused that something that may not have even happened is affecting me so strongly. I whip the door open, before I can obsess over it anymore.

In the weak morning light the hallway seems utterly unthreatening. The corner that's haunted me all night is shadowy and dark, but empty. There's absolutely nothing scary about it. I step out of my room and pause, waiting to see what reaction this thing in my chest will have, but it stays the same; assurance that it was all a dream or at the very least, a waking nightmare swells.

The front rooms downstairs are empty, so I wander down hallways leading deeper into the house in search of Adelaide or Church. As I walk, I come across open double doors that reveal floor to ceiling shelves with rows and rows of books. I stand in the threshold, looking around at what must be thousands of books. What does a world renowned author read?

Noises of activity down the hall draw my attention away from the library, and I start following the sounds. I end up in the kitchen watching Adelaide make breakfast. Her focus is divided between the stove-top and something she keeps searching for outside the window. She doesn't notice me.

"Good morning."

She turns quickly with a look of shock that quickly morphs into a smile.

"Good morning, dear."

"I didn't mean to startle you."

"I'm just not used to visitors, that's all. How did you sleep? I hope the storm didn't keep you awake."

"No, I barely noticed it after a while."

She nods and turns back to the stove. A small bird flies past the window, and her head darts up to look out. She stays frozen for a couple moments, eyes trained on the landscape outside the window, spatula poised over the frying pan, and then she looks away again.

"Are you looking for something?"

"Oh... I just thought something was out there," she replies dismissively, before quietly adding, "There wasn't."

Her words bring last night back to the forefront of my mind, and uncertainty quickly follows.

"Is there anyone else in the house?" I ask hesitantly.

She looks surprised for a moment before she answers, "No, it's just the three of us. Why do you ask?"

"Never mind, it's silly." She looks me over with searching eyes. I turn my head away to avoid her gaze.

"Maybe you should say it anyway. It might make you feel better."

I look back quickly. "I feel fine."

"I don't think you slept well at all, Bella."

I hesitate. Saying it out loud is acknowledging that I think it might have been real.

"I told you about my first days here, didn't I? I'm sure I'll understand."

"But you were a child."

She smiles at me kindly, and warmly says, "The twenty-odd years you've spent on this earth haven't been as long as you think."

I hesitate a moment longer, before giving into my curiosity. "I thought I saw someone in the upstairs hallway last night."

Adelaide looks away thoughtfully. "Well... this is an old house. Old houses have a way of hiding pieces of the past within them."

"I don't understand what you mean."

"Ghosts."

"What?"

"We have a ghost."

"A g_host_?" I ask sceptically.

"Yes, what's left of a person after their body passes away."

"Are you talking about non-corporeal spirits of the dead?"

Adelaide laughs lightly. "No, not exactly." She turns back to the stove, before quickly launching into another conversation. "Did I tell you about the time I got lost in the gardens when I was little? The house is so large my mother didn't realize I'd wandered outside until at least two hours later. She wouldn't let me out of her sight for months afterward. Anyway, she was baking, and I was supposed to be playing in my room, but it was the first sunny day since we'd come to Ferndale. So, I decided I was going outside to play, without telling my mother, of course. She would've said _no_."

00000

"Is your gizmo ready?"

"Start whenever you like," I answer, pressing the record button on the small silver device sitting between us on the coffee table.

"Alright." He takes a deep breath and carefully adjusts the sleeve of his shirt. "I suppose I should start at the very beginning, which precipitously enough happens to be one of the most important parts of my story. I, Miss Swan, was birthed from death."

"You mean your mother died in childbirth?"

"I'm going to have to insist that you don't ask me any questions. The only way to properly tell a story is to tell it the way it's meant to be told, and questions only pull you out of the narrative and put you down somewhere else you're not meant to be yet, if at all. One must let a narrative follow its natural course."

"I'm sorry."

"I'll also have to insist that you don't do that. I can't stand apologies; people so rarely mean them. Not that I'm saying you don't, you seem like a very genuine young woman, it's merely a general rule. As for you having something to apologize for, I'd say you most certainly don't. I had meant to tell you that before we started, but as I'm sure you've noticed I'm well aged, much like wine, but with less positive results." He finishes with a playful grin.

"Now, where was I? Oh yes. I was birthed from death. That's one of the more dramatic statements I've ever made, I'm sure. It was Chicago, 1918, in the midst of an influenza epidemic. The experience was life-shaping in a way that's hard to comprehend, let alone describe, but I have no doubt it would've been a far more traumatic event if it weren't for the presence of my father. He was everything one could want in a father. He raised me, taught me, and loved me unconditionally. I didn't have a mother until years later, but when I did, she was perfect, well worth the wait. But now I've skipped ahead in my own narrative. I'm afraid personal stories are much harder to keep on track than fictitious ones; you feel the need to explain things before it's time."

The energy in my chest is starting to build, but it's not as strong or as fast as the reaction I get from his books. I was expecting it to be overwhelming, something to put the feeling I get from the books to shame, but it's less, much less. It's a shallow and weak impersonation of the feeling I'm used to.

"At my birth there was only my father and my doctor, the same man incidentally. Although I suppose he wouldn't have been my father if he wasn't my doctor."

I open my mouth to ask what he means when I catch the twinkle in his eye. He's testing me, waiting to see if I'll break his rule. I press my lips tightly shut.

"Good," he says happily, and smiles widely at me.

"I didn't take well to my life. I found it very difficult in many ways... although I certainly didn't help myself to adjust. I have a tendency to over-think things," he adds conspiratorially. There's a humour behind his words I don't understand, but I resist the urge to ask for an explanation.

"My father never lost patience with me. He was always there to help and encourage whenever I needed it, which was often. I'm afraid I was a very needy child, very serious as well. He frequently claimed that he benefited from our relationship as much as I did, that I assuaged a deep, longstanding loneliness within him. I don't doubt his sincerity; he was a very sincere man. I just don't understand how he could feel companionship when my existence placed so much responsibility solely on him.

"The first years were the worst. I was a very angry newborn, as well as impulsive. It's an excessively bad combination, as I'm sure you can imagine. I'm ashamed to say I often took that out on my father, although he certainly didn't deserve it, even more so because he never called me out on my behaviour towards him. He's truly the most remarkable man I've ever met."

00000

I head to the library as soon as I'm dismissed in the early afternoon, the questions created by the cryptic words of Ethan Church running through my head. Did his mother die during childbirth? Did his father have to be a doctor, because he met Church's mother when he was working? Or did he mean something else? Why was his father lonely before his mother died? Was it a loveless relationship? If so, how aware of that is Church?

I also have more general questions like: Why isn't he using any names? Is Ethan Church his real name, or is it a pseudonym? Why does he speak of himself during his early childhood as if he were a cognizant adult? Why would the energy in my chest be weaker when the words are coming directly from him?

Whether or not I'll get answers to any of these questions, I'm not sure. I have a feeling I might not.

I find some respite from my racing mind amongst the shelves of books. My thoughts go peacefully quiet as I focus on the tactile sensation of the smooth leather and worn fabric bindings under my fingertips. Almost all the books are old. Most are well known classics, many I'm unfamiliar with, and there are entire sections of books in languages I don't read. In one corner of the room there's a row of bookcases full of hardcover editions of his works, multiple copies of each title with different covers for each reprinting.

The ones I've read are around the middle and end of the section. I pull over the ladder on wheels to look at the top books. The first one, titled _Parting Words_, has a 1938 publication date, and there are four later editions of it lined up after, not as many as some of the later ones.

I pull the oldest edition out and sit by the grey light coming through one of the big windows. The feeling in my chest that has been slowly fading, just as it slowly built, suddenly expands into the consuming pulse that accompanies the books.

The story of a young man condemned to a life he never wanted by the dying words of his mother is full of anger, grief, and a vivid feeling of self-loathing that leaves an uneasiness within me which has nothing to do with the pulsing energy. It's raw in a way the others I've read aren't. I feel almost like I'm looking into someone's soul, and I'm not entirely sure whether or not I have their permission.

Ethan Church would've only been twenty when it was published. So much pain in such a young man. It fits with what he's told me. We haven't even gotten to his teens yet, and he already talks about these feelings. I just hadn't comprehended exactly how deeply he meant it.

I return the book to its spot and resist the urge to pull out the next one. It's getting late. Adelaide's probably already started dinner. I don't want her to have to come looking for me. As I turn away I notice a book across the room with a cover that's an odd shade of purple. It's very familiar.

I drag the ladder behind me, so I can get up to the top shelf to see it. It's exactly what I thought it was. _Violet Blue_ by Zoe Lacroix, translated by Isabella Swan. I scan the other books on the shelf and find one copy of every book I've ever translated. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. He's obviously familiar with my work, and he did say he had copies in his library - well he said he had _a few_, but I guess he meant _all_.

I suddenly feel very self-conscious that he's read my work. I flip _Violet Blue_ open to a random page. Notes are haphazardly scrawled in the margins, in the spaces between paragraphs, on scraps of paper and post-it notes put in between the pages. I'm almost certain they're written in the handwriting from the letters, but it's cramped into the small spaces and jotted down in a way that implies a sense of urgency or maybe frustration. I can't make out anything but the odd word such as "meaning," "foreshadows," "succinct," "superfluous," and something about a "sacrifice of word flow to increase the comprehension of --- events."

Given the shaking in Church's right hand, and the limited, stiff movements I've seen him make with his left, it doesn't seem likely that he wrote this. Does he dictate and Adelaide writes? Maybe I should try to find something I know she's written and see if it's the same.

I put _Violet Blue_ back on the shelf and notice that one of the other books is sitting oddly against the one next to it. I pull it out and find a large raised indentation on the back cover. Flipping through pages full of the same type of notes, I find that the sheets of the last half of the book have the same indentation, like something very heavy landed forcefully on the left side of the book when it was open. It almost looks like a fist.


	4. The Gardens

**The Gardens**

Church sits silently on the overstuffed couch, collecting his thoughts before he starts for the day. It's part of the routine he's developed over the past week and a half. I use the time to prepare myself for the energy that flows with his words. The feeling has stayed at the same strength, but it gets deeper the farther into the story we get.

He takes a deep breath, a signal of sorts for me to turn on the recorder, and then he speaks.

"To say that I was unhappy about the unexpected arrival of my sister would be an understatement. I understood that my parents hadn't planned for her to join us, but I wasn't particularly understanding in my reaction. My disapproval wasn't just for my own sake, although she did make my life much more difficult than it had been, it was also for hers.

"She joined us in 1933. She had a troubled birth. Even before the labour began there was... trauma, a great deal of trauma. She was very close to death when Father started the process, and this affected her deeply for the rest of her life.

"Although we were very different people, we did have things in common. She was also very angry and unhappy with her life. Unlike me, her anger was turned entirely outwards, and it was fierce in a way I don't think I can ever really comprehend, truly vicious.

"She was born broken, and she dedicated her early life to destroying those at fault. She called it 'reparations.' I suppose it was her form of healing, which was why we stepped back and allowed her to follow through with her plans, no matter how much they went against our principles. We made an exception. She needed to heal herself, and eventually she did, although I'm not sure how much her revenge had to do with that. It gave her some measure of satisfaction though, and she deserved at least that."

He goes quiet for a moment, closing his eyes as he takes in a deep, shaky breath. The thing settles, pausing in its exceptionally slow process of burrowing into my chest.

"We never got along, even in the very beginning. She took exception to my complete disregard for her ethereal beauty, and I took exception to her presence in my life, in my family.

"Although it was an unplanned thing, almost right away Father developed the hope that having her in our family would ease some of my loneliness, give me a companion. She wouldn't have been my choice had I been given the option.

"Mother did her best to smooth the tension between us. She harboured some of the same hopes as Father for the two of us, but she never truly believed we would get along as he wanted. We clashed in almost every way, but we both felt a deep loyalty to our parents, to the family they had created. We resented the lives our father had given us, but it was all we had, so we found ways to coexist."

00000

I planned to go to the library in the afternoon, as I usually do, but as soon as I catch a glimpse of the sun slowly edging its way out from behind the clouds I decide I have to go outside.

Adelaide clearly has the same idea, because she comes out a few minutes later, and we walk across the expanse of grass into the gardens together. There are blocks of hedges that separate the garden into little pockets; each has a small flowerbed, or a tree, or a cluster of ferns.

"I don't think I've ever seen a garden like this before."

"It is unusual, isn't it?" Adelaide replies with a wan smile. She's been increasingly quiet and distracted since I got here. I suppose it makes sense that she would be upset that Church is dying.

"Is he getting worse?" I ask softly.

She's quiet for a moment before she answers, "He's been getting worse for a while now, but no more than was expected. He's in a lot of pain, you know."

I look over at her quickly. I figured he was probably in some pain, but I thought his frequent rests were mostly to collect his thoughts and energy.

"I'm not surprised you didn't know. He has a lot of experience with pain, and he's gotten very good at hiding it."

"Isn't there something his doctor can give him?"

"Pain medication decreases his lucidity. He wouldn't be able to remember what he's supposed to tell you, so he refuses to take it in the morning. I suppose he probably thinks he's being stoic. Personally I think he's being foolish, but it's not my choice to make."

"You're against him doing the book, then?"

"He decided long ago that when the time came he would do this. At the time I thought it was an excellent idea, but, of course, none of us knew what the end would be like. I do wish he would reconsider, but I'm afraid I'm no match for his stubborn will. Now if my mother was still here this wouldn't be an issue, but I haven't had the hard life she did, so I'm afraid I don't have the hard will that comes with it."

"Are you close to Mr. Church?"

"I've known him almost my entire life, better than I knew my father. He's very much like an uncle to me, so it's not easy for me to try to tell him what he should do, at least when it comes to things like this."

"Do you think I should stop?" The idea of leaving now causes panic to start to bubble up in my stomach, and the thing in my chest wrenches itself in protest.

"No. If it wasn't you, he'd be telling it to someone else. He'd have to start all over again."

"I'm sorry."

She smiles at me sadly and says, "He's not going to be around long. If this is what he wants to do with that time, I suppose it's the right thing for him to be doing." She's quiet for a moment before she adds, "I still think he's a fool."

00000

I jerk awake in the dark; the thing in my chest is pulsing so strongly it pulled me out of sleep. I sit up in bed, scanning the room. The weak light of the moon coming in through the windows is the only thing to see by, but it doesn't seem like anything's out of place. I don't notice one of the windows is open until a cold gust of wind brushes against my shoulders. I know I didn't leave it open.

Getting up slowly, I cautiously make my way over to the window. The energy had started fading as soon as I woke up, but it noticeably increases the closer I get. Standing at the window I look out on the gardens, feeling the urge to go down there. It's the same as when I brought home those books. I feel drawn to something outside.

I know I should stay in this room. I should shut the window, get back into bed, and try to forget about this, but I can't.

I make my way quickly down the stairs, hyper-aware of every little noise I make on the way. I follow the feeling in my chest to the back doors and slip out into the night. I stand on the wet grass in my bare feet, wearing only my pyjamas, staring at the greenery in front of me.

I briefly think about turning back, slinking back to my room, and pretending I never came out here, but the thing in my chest thumps, driving me forward.

I wander mindlessly through the hedges that twist and turn, seemingly without end. It seems like an entirely different place from the one I walked in with Adelaide this afternoon. This place is dark and sinister, hiding secrets in its deep shadows. If I hadn't been here earlier, seen it in the harsh light of day, I might be strongly tempted to think it was alive, shifting and changing to keep me searching but never finding anything. I might be strongly tempted to think this was part of a different world. I'm tempted enough as it is.

The thing continues to get steadily stronger, and then I turn one more corner, and the feeling blossoms in my chest, overriding everything else. He's here, standing in the opening in the hedges on the other side of the pocket garden. He was the one in the hallway. I don't know how I know that, but I do.

He isn't in the shadows this time. He's standing out in the light of the moon, pale and perfect. He's too pale, too beautiful, too perfect to be real. He's impossible. That thought should be enough to drive me away, but instead I take an unconscious step forward. He takes a corresponding step backwards, and his lips quirk into a reassuring smile, meant to dismiss his actions. His eyes don't match the rest of his expression. They have a look I can't place, too many emotions muddled together to pick out any one.

As soon as my eyes meet his the feeling in my chest contracts into a tight, heavy ball, pulling all the oxygen from my lungs in the process. We stand there in a silence that stretches until it seems endless.

"Who are you?" If I didn't recognize my own voice I wouldn't know I'd spoken.

He gives me a crooked smile instead of an answer. It's crooked, but still perfect somehow.

He slowly takes a couple steps backwards, and then he disappears behind a wall of hedges. The thing balled in my chest doesn't change, but I become aware again. Suddenly I fall to my knees in the wet grass, gasping for air. My hands are pressed to my chest, trying to dislodge this thing so I can breathe.

It slowly begins to dissipate, and I lie on the grass taking deep, measured breaths. I barely notice I'm shaking.

Sometime around dawn I stumble back to my room. The early morning light takes the gardens back to the place I walked yesterday afternoon, nothing but loosely sculpted nature.

As soon as I get on the bed I'm asleep. Even the thoughts whirling around in my mind aren't enough to keep me awake this time.

Only a few hours later I get up and walk downstairs like I'm in a fog. I feel almost zombie-like after the events of last night coupled with my lack of sleep, but Adelaide seems happier than she's been since I got here, and Church seems much more relaxed, so I guess the night wasn't unsettling for everyone.

**A/N:** I really don't know why these chapters keep coming out so short. It kind of bothers me, but I don't want to put in a bunch of filler for the sake of a couple hundred words, so it is what it is, I guess.

Ethan Church has been nominated over at The Indie Twific Awards for "Best Original Character WIP" and "Most Original Story Line WIP."

My other story Bright Like the Sun has been nominated for "Best Alternate Universe Human WIP" and "Best Use of Comedy WIP."

The initial round of voting is from July 8 – 12 at http://theindietwificawards dot com.


	5. The Gift

**A/N:** Beta'd by Miss Poison (Twilighted) and Feisty Y. Beden (FFn).

**The Gift**

"In 1935, I got a brother. It only happened because of my sister. She was obsessed with children, babies in particular. She insisted the family be expanded, and our parents were loath to deprive us of anything that would make us happy, within reason, of course. So I gained a younger brother, a very happy one. I'm sure he was a pleasant change for our parents.

"They got along _very_ well, my sister and my brother. We all agreed she was much more palatable to live with after that, not necessarily pleasant, but palatable."

He pauses and shifts his body stiffly on the overstuffed couch cushions. His face creases in pain, smoothing out when his jerky movements cease.

"Are you alright?"

Church smiles slightly and says, "You know, I find it odd that people still ask me that when they know very well that I'm not. I suppose it's a relative question at this point. In which case, yes, I'm alright. I'm just trying to get settled, but my hands aren't much use and my legs are even worse, so it isn't the easiest task."

"Oh."

"Oh?" He repeats with a laugh.

"I couldn't think of anything to say that didn't sound like an apology," I reply, fidgeting self-consciously.

"Well, I appreciate the effort."

"I wasn't aware you had problems with your legs." It isn't until I say it that I realize I've never seen him walk or even stand. He's here when I come in, he's here when I leave, and I've never seen him outside of this room.

"I wouldn't say I have problems with them; they just don't work. I suppose most people would consider that a problem, a fairly large one, but at this point I tend to think of them as inanimate objects. I don't expect them to do anything, and they do exactly that, so it doesn't seem like anything is wrong anymore."

"I suppose asking you what happened would be pointless."

"You are good with rules, aren't you?" he asks with a playful smile.

"I've never been much of a rebel."

He smiles, almost to himself. There's something mischievous mixing in with his amusement, and then I can see it, a rebel of long ago sparking to life in the eyes of an elderly dying man. It's unexpected, so very different from what I've seen and heard so far. Something about it doesn't sit right in my mind. It registers like a false note, but I can't quite justify the feeling.

"Where was I?" he asks.

"Your sister was becoming palatable."

"Ah yes. I wouldn't say he made her happy with her life. There were still a lot of things about it that she deeply resented, but he helped her to accept that those things couldn't be changed, that she was only making herself miserable by obsessing over them. It caused a marked change in her. Her anger with our father for creating her was balanced by her gratitude to him for creating our brother. She still wasn't particularly fond of me, although I did go out of my way to antagonize her."

"You antagonized a two-year-old? Wouldn't you have been seventeen at the time?"

"And you were doing so well with the rules."

I sigh and lean back in my chair. "It's very difficult not to ask you any questions."

"If it was easy, I wouldn't need the rule," he says with a smile. "We seem to be getting very off topic today. Where was I this time?"

"You were antagonizing a two-year-old."

"So, I was. Initially I was just as upset about his birth as I was my sister's, but... it was very different. Our mother finally got a happy child. No matter what my feelings on our lives were, I didn't have it in me to ruin that for her with my self-loathing."

00000

"Do you have any preferences for lunch?" Adelaide asks as I take a seat at the kitchen table.

"Something like a sandwich would be perfect. I thought I would take my lunch outside since it's been dry so far today."

She nods and starts digging into the old refrigerator.

"Did you ever leave Ferndale after you came with your mother or have you lived here since then?" I ask a few moments later.

"I went away to school, one of those fancy boarding ones. I thought it was a bit much myself, but they had a very impressive reputation so Mother was fond of the idea. Before I finished, Mother became ill, and I came home. After she died, I decided to stay."

"Did you ever marry?"

"No. Growing up in an environment where the only person who'd been married was prematurely widowed didn't exactly make me keen on the idea."

"Do you ever regret staying here?"

She turns to me with a thoughtful look before she replies, "I don't think there's any point second-guessing decisions that have already been made; there's no changing them now."

"I suppose you're right."

She smiles at me as she hands me a sandwich wrapped in wax paper and a thermos.

On my way out, I notice a calendar tacked up on the wall and realize I have no idea what day it is.

"How long have I been here?"

Adelaide comes to stand beside me, studying the calendar.

"A little over two weeks, I'd say."

I nod and thank her for lunch before heading outside.

I sit on the grass in front of the entrance to the pocket gardens to eat. I haven't been in there since the night I saw him, but I've spent an inordinate amount of time looking at them from the outside. Hearing it's been about a week since that night was surprising. I'm not sure if I thought the time was shorter or longer, but I definitely knew I'd lost track.

The days have started to blend together into a swirling mass of grey skies, Church in the morning room, Adelaide in the kitchen, and my dark bedroom at night. Every day a slightly different version of the last with his story woven through them, keeping them together and pulling them along, or at least that's how it's starting to feel.

I think a trip into town might be a good idea, a good way to clear my head. All these muddled, abstract thoughts are making me feel tired all the time. For days I've been debating with myself, if and when I should make the trip, but I haven't managed to come to a decision yet. I think it would be good for my mind, but I'm still hesitant. Since that night, I've had a near constant pulse in my chest. I've grown used to it to the point where it's like breathing. You really only notice it's happening if something about it changes.

This is the reason I've put off going. I'm worried that if I leave, this new level of feeling will go with me, and I'll have to wonder whether I'll be carrying it around with me all my life, even after I leave here. I'm also afraid it'll stop.

I wander around outside the house until it starts to rain lightly, and then I make my way to the library. With a weary glance at the shelves of his books as I pass, I head to the other side of the room. This steady beat in my chest has almost completely eclipsed the pull of the books, so far allowing me to avoid reading any more of them.

I spend my free time carefully looking over the books in his collection, trying to get a better picture of the man who brought them all together here. Today I'm looking through a section of older books with yellowed paper and crumbling spines.

I stop at a copy of _Wuthering Heights_ divided into three volumes, so old they may be originals. I delicately run my finger over the words on the bindings, feeling the cracks and rough patches in the old material. I desperately want to take one down, look through the old pages at the familiar words. It's not the same way I feel about his books, not the same way at all, but it's still strong.

The feeling in my chest spikes, ripping my attention away from the books, and I spin around. There's nothing there. The library doors are open, but I think I left them that way.

I look back at the books. As much as I'd like to take them down, I don't know what I'd do if they crumbled in my hands or cracked down the spine as the pages opened, falling to the floor in pieces. There's enough destruction in the pages without destroying the books themselves.

Instead, I settle for going back to my room to unpack my own copy, forgotten in my carry-on with my other favourite books. I settle into a low armchair, high-backed with blue silk, in the corner by the windows, and leaf through, reading it in brief fragments.

It's a hardcover copy from the fifties that I found in the back of my Saturday book shop. It's soothingly familiar when my life seems to have changed so much, but as I run my fingers over the smooth pages I can't help but wonder how much different the other would feel. Mine is so many more publications away from the original, so many more years away from the author. I laugh as soon as the thought crosses my mind, as if those things would change anything, a word or two maybe, but the story is what it is, then and now.

I think going into town, taking a break from this place would be a very good idea. Maybe I'll go tomorrow.

00000

I wake in the night; feeling like the thing in my chest is trying to beat its way out. Once again the feeling starts to fade back to normal as soon as I'm awake.

I flick on the bedside light after I catch my breath. Once again there's nothing there. Despite being familiar, it's still just as disconcerting as the first time. Memories of gasping in the garden, trying to find air against the damp grass flood in, but I'd go back tonight if he was there.

I contemplate getting up to walk to the window, until I see the books. They're sitting on top of the bed covers by my legs, worn and faded with age. I slowly reach forward, lifting the front cover of one to look at the title page, which says _Wuthering Heights by Ellis Bell, Vol I, 1847_. It's an original.

I spend the rest of the night reading over the words, most of which I could probably recite from memory, and crying as Catherine makes one decision that ruins the lives of so many.

**A/N:**

The Indie TwiFic Awards:

Ethan Church has made it to the final round of voting for "Best Original Character WIP."

Bright Like the Sun has made it to the final round of voting for "Best Alternate Universe Human WIP" and "Best Use of Comedy WIP."

Voting is from July 22 – 26 at theindietwificawards(dot)com.


	6. He Speaks

**A/N:** Beta'd by Miss Poison (Twilighted) and Feisty Y. Beden (FFn).

**He Speaks**

"Did you enjoy your trip into town?" Adelaide asks as she sets a plate of pancakes in front of me.

"It was a nice day to be outside, but Forks was much smaller than I thought it would be."

Going into town hadn't turned out to be the respite I was hoping for. The sensation in my chest went dormant. I could still feel it there, sitting heavy inside my ribs, but it wasn't active. The pull, on the other hand, got stronger and stronger the farther I got from the house.

Since the tiny town had little to hold my interest, I ended up thinking obsessively about the books. How did they get in my room, on my bed? It barely crossed my mind to consider if Church or Adelaide were responsible. From what I understand Church isn't capable, and I honestly can't see Adelaide sneaking around my room at night. That leaves the only other person I've seen at Ferndale, and I'm not even sure he's real. Not to mention I can't think of a single reason why he would do something like that.

"You should try Port Angeles next time. It's about an hour farther, but it's quite a bit bigger. They even have a movie theatre."

I nod and watch her sit down at the table across from me. I want to ask about the books, but I'm not sure if it's a good idea. She said no one else lives here. She said they have a ghost, but I'm not entirely sure what she _meant_ by ghost. She seemed to find my interpretation amusing, but she didn't elaborate on her own. I don't know if she was telling the truth, avoiding my question, or lying. I do know she ended the conversation very abruptly. I also know it'll drive me insane if I don't ask something.

"Does Mr. Church collect first editions?"

"Not particularly. I believe he has a few, aside from his own that is."

"I noticed there's a first edition copy of _Wuthering Heights_ in the library."

"Is there?" she asks in surprise.

"Yes."

She laughs, and shakes her head in wonder.

"What?" I ask.

"He hates that book."

"Why?"

She pauses for a moment, a hint of reluctance flashing through her eyes, before she answers, "He said that Catherine dies too soon."

"I wouldn't think he was averse to the early death of fictional characters from reading his books."

"No, you don't understand." She hesitates again, seemingly debating with herself over her answer. After a few moments she sighs, and quietly says, "He feels she should have lived longer so that she could see the full repercussions of her actions. So that she would understand what her decision had done. So that she could suffer through the consequences. He begrudges her escape."

Her words hang heavy in the air through the rest of breakfast.

00000

"When I originally decided to change the way I was perceived, to lessen the amount of outward negativity for the sake of my parents, primarily my mother, my plan was to pretend. Essentially I wanted to fool my parents into thinking I was happy. I hoped to play it off as an effect of having my ever-jovial brother around the house.

"I've always been very good at reading people, so it wasn't too hard for me to figure out what they would and wouldn't believe. It worked very well, at least in the case of my mother. Although I've never been sure whether I was truly that good an actor, or if she just wanted to believe me so much that she overlooked any issues.

"My father wasn't so easy to convince. He had only known me three years longer than my mother, but in that time I was... _everything_, the entirety of his family. He could read me almost as well as I could read him. He knew I was lying.

"He wasn't happy that I was pretending. He wanted me to find a way of actually dealing with my feelings, but he didn't say anything for quite a while. He was torn between calling me out on my lie and allowing it to go on to keep his wife happy. I won't equivocate. I preyed on that. I knew it would bother him to see me lie like that about something as fundamental as feelings, but I also knew he'd choose his wife's happiness, even if it necessitated the lie. Which is why I started showing the differences when he wasn't around, so that by the time he realized what I was doing, Mother had already noticed the changes."

Church pauses, taking a few deep breaths, before he lifts his water glass to his lips with a shaking hand.

"Eventually he did confront me. It got rather heated actually. At one point he called me a coward, because I was pretending to be happy instead of working to actually be so. It was the first time he ever yelled at me. Normally when he was displeased about something he would remain very calm, preferring to explain himself and discuss issues rather than fight over them, but he got very emotional about this. It was shocking to me to see him react like that, which is probably the only thing that got me to actually listen to him.

"He suggested that I talk about everything I had been holding inside. Speaking to someone outside the family really wasn't an option, but neither was confiding in most of the people inside the family. My father offered to listen whenever I wanted to talk, but I loathed the idea of burdening him with it all. It seemed so unfair after everything he had done for me.

"After I rejected that, he suggested I could write it all down. That way I could get it off my chest, and I wouldn't have to share it with anyone if I didn't want to. I walked away from our conversation feeling that I had to do something, but I was unsure of what.

"A few days later, I bought a journal. I didn't tell anyone what I was doing, aside from assuring Father that I wasn't ignoring what he had said. I'm sure they had their suspicions though, after I started coming home every day smelling like ink and paper.

"I wrote every day for weeks, almost nonstop. I went through dozens of journals and hundreds of sheets of paper. It felt freeing, almost... cleansing when I was writing, but the feeling never lasted long. It became an addiction of sorts.

"When I had written out everything I had to say, I burned it all. I hoped that destroying the words would in some way destroy the feelings that dictated them. It didn't work. In fact, the failure made me feel worse. So, I wrote again to help ease that, thus opening myself up to the possibility of a vicious circle.

"I've never been one to take failure of any kind well, and once again, I took it out on my father, under the poor justification that it was his idea that didn't work. When I confronted him, he told me he only wanted to help me, and I told him there was nothing he could do. He said, 'There might be, if you'd let me.'

"That really caught my attention, _if you'd let me_, and I thought, could it really be that simple?"

Church idly adjusts the cuff of his shirt, before using his right hand to move his left off his lap and onto the couch beside him. His eyes close briefly before he continues.

"I gave my father the journal and watched him read the entire thing. When he was done I felt... better, lighter. I felt like a piece of all that I had been carrying around with me was gone, like he'd taken it away from me and into himself.

"It was a small change, but it was exactly what I'd been hoping for. It seemed logical to think that the more people who read it, the more of my burden I would lose. Of course, almost no one would want to read what I had given to my father. It was merely pages and pages of unpolished fragments.

"I thought briefly of creating some sort of memoir, something a little more put together, but why would anyone read about the life of someone they'd never even heard of? Not to mention the fact that it was very early in my life. I didn't have anything to say that anyone would want to hear, so I decided to try my hand at fiction.

"I took my feelings, the events of my life, and twisted them around into stories about other people. Of course, it's all very ironic now. I wrote about fictional people instead of myself, because no one would want to read about me, and now that seems to be what people want most from me. Life's funny that way, I guess."

00000

I stand in the library, staring at the gap on the shelf where the books sitting on my bedside table used to be. He has a copy of _Wuthering Heights_, a valuable copy, but he doesn't like the book, and somehow it ended up on my bed in the middle of the night. Somehow I had gotten it into my head that seeing where they were taken from would give me some insight into how they got to my room, but it's nothing but a void three books wide.

I'm contemplating going back up to my room to take another look at the books and the place where they were left, when the feeling in my chest spikes like it did the last time I was in the library. I know there won't be anything there when I look, but I do anyway; I have to. I freeze in place, half-turned away from the shelves when I realize I was wrong.

When I saw him in the garden, the weak moonlight had washed all the colour away, leaving him a shadowy black and white, like an old photograph, but here under the overhead lights he's intense white, and bronze, and gold. He looks even more unnaturally perfect.

Once again the feeling expands, pushing against my lungs, but it's not as bad as last time. I can still breathe, although it feels laboured.

He stands just out of reach, silent and impossibly still, until one side of his mouth quirks up into an awkward smile.

"Hello." His voice is quiet and smooth, while mine seems to have disappeared into the pulsing, swirling pressure in my chest.

"I'm sorry if I scared you before. That wasn't my intention."

I pull in a deep breath, carefully concentrating on forming each word so I can ask, "Did you leave me the books?"

He shifts slightly, as if nervous or uncomfortable, but something about the movement seems intentional.

"I did."

"Why?"

"You seemed... almost reverent towards them the other day. I thought you'd like them."

"It's one of my favourites."

He frowns slightly and says, "It's not a very nice book."

I laugh, but it sounds more like air escaping than anything else. "Haven't you ever read an Ethan Church novel?"

"No, I make a point never to read them." His head turns infinitesimally in the direction of Ethan Church's books; it's so slight a movement I'm not sure it really happened.

"But you do... read?" I ask carefully.

His mouth curls up into an amused smile and he answers, "I am literate, yes."

My face flushes, heat spreading across my cheeks right to my ears. "No, I meant... I'm not really sure what I meant." I was trying to ask if he's physically able to read, if his hands are capable of holding and manipulating books, if his eyes recognize words the same way mine do. I was trying to ask if he's human, but I'm not sure I want to know the answer.

"I like books, if that's what you meant."

"I've never seen you in here before."

He looks briefly at the rows of books around us, before he says, "I've already read these."

His statement destroys the concentration required of me to form words at the moment, so I stare in silence until I can pull myself together enough to ask, "All of them?"

"I'm a very prolific reader."

"But... _all_?" There are hundreds, possibly thousands of books in this room, and they aren't all in English. I'm not even sure what language some of them are in.

"Yes."

"But not the Ethan Church books?"

He looks to the side, his face squinting in thought. "No, I've never read any of them, but everything else."

My eyes trail over the books surrounding us as I try to comprehend the magnitude of that. I wonder how much of this room would be filled if all the books I've ever read were brought together. I have no idea how many books I've read, but I think it would take many more years for me to even come close to this.

My eyes once again settle on the void on the shelf, before I turn back to him.

"I guess I should return the books soon."

"Why?"

"I finished them."

"You don't have to return them."

"But they belong here."

"They're yours," he says adamantly.

"I suppose Church won't miss them," I mutter quietly.

"Why do you say that?"

"Adelaide said he hates _Wuthering Heights_."

"I would say it's more that he disagrees with essential points of the plot. It's not how he would've written it."

"I think I prefer Emily's version."

He smiles slightly and looks out the windows.

"I should go," he says suddenly.

"Oh, okay." I have the urge to reach out and see what meets my fingers when I touch him, but I clasp my hands behind my back instead.

"I'll see you soon, Isabella. We can talk about nice books."

"I'd like that."

He smiles as he backs towards the doors, keeping his eyes on me until he steps out into the hall.

I drop into a nearby chair as the pressure on my lungs fades away and breathing becomes easy again. I'm sure talking would be easy again too if I had any words to do it with, but I can't think of a single thing to say. Although _he speaks_ circles round and round in my head as I watch dust motes float though the rays of sunlight flooding into the room from the newly parted clouds.

00000

I wake up the next morning with the echo of familiar words ringing through my head. They start slipping away as soon as I wake up, but they stay just at the edge of my mind, elusive, but present all day. Constantly taunting me and my inability to capture the words and place where I know them from.


	7. Obsession

**A/N:** Beta'd by Miss Poison (Twilighted) and Feisty Y. Beden (FFn).

**Obsession**

Once again I wake up with words tumbling around in my head, resting on the tip of my tongue, and I still can't figure out what they are. I'm not sure how many days this has been going on. I've lost track again, but I think I prefer it that way. Knowing how many days have passed would mean knowing how many of my days at Ferndale have gone by. There's no set date that this arrangement is supposed to end, but it can't go on indefinitely. I'm a guest here, an employee of sorts, and eventually I'm going to have to leave. The feeling in my chest contracts painfully at the thought.

I take deep breaths, waiting for the feeling to ease before I climb out of bed.

Since the man from the garden started joining me in the library after my mornings with Church, I've been giving a lot of thought to the ghost stories I used to read when I was little. I always used to think of them as interesting, but tragic, stories akin to folklore, myths, and legends, but now I'm starting to question that assumption.

If the stories are true, that means ghosts can move things; they can appear and speak; they may even be able to read. If the stories are true, that means that the man I can't stop thinking about all day could be the severest form of unavailable, he could be dead. The feeling contracts again, more sharply this time, and I lean against the bathroom counter as I struggle to breathe around it.

As overwhelming as this feeling is, I don't know if I'm going to be able to deal with the emptiness that could replace it when it comes time for me to go back to my normal life. This solid thing has been sitting inside me for so long now that I feel like my chest will collapse in on the void it'll leave behind. I feel like I need it to live.

00000

Church seems particularly weighed down this morning. I've come to recognize the signs of his hidden physical strain, but something seems to be exacerbating it today.

He sits silently for longer than usual before he quietly starts to speak.

"I was nearly finished writing my third book when Pearl Harbour was bombed. I always regretted the fact that I wasn't able to participate in the First World War, and for a while it seemed like America was going to stay out of the Second altogether, but that day changed everything.

"I suppose many boys and young men dream about being soldiers. They want to be heroes, to go off to war and prove themselves.

"When I dreamed of signing up for World War One, the Great War, I was the living embodiment of that... I hesitate to say cliché - in my mind it seems to demean the sacrifices made under the influence of it - but I suppose it is what I mean. I was idealistic and naive. I was young, but like most young people, I didn't really realize it at the time."

He pauses for a moment, and I use the time to rack my brain for hints of this idealism he's mentioned. It seems to me he was born a pessimist.

The silence seems to stretch longer than usual, and I'm about to say something when I notice his face. His expression is contorted in its struggle to suppress his emotions. The pain fighting its way out is heartbreaking.

"Are you alright?" I ask softly.

He replies with a forced smile and quietly says, "Short day today, I think."

When he starts speaking again his voice wavers slightly but becomes increasingly steady as he continues.

"When America joined the Second World War, I was a very different person. I was far more jaded. I no longer thought war was wonderful and glamorous, but I still wanted to join. I felt it was a way to make my life useful in some way. I'd spent so long resenting my existence, wishing I was something better, but I'd never tried to accomplish anything with it.

"I've always considered my books to be something selfish. I use them to ease my own burdens, foisting them on unwitting people who pay me for them. Going to war seemed to me to be the most unselfish thing I could do. I knew without a doubt it would be a difficult and painful experience for me, and given the fact that I'd long ago shed my ideas about heroes and glory, there wouldn't be any gain. I wanted to do more than take from the world for once.

"My family was adamantly against it. When I told them my plans they reacted... strongly. My father was stunned. My mother cried. My sister said it was the stupidest idea I'd ever had, and she'd never thought I was all that smart to begin with. My brother was still of the mind that there was something adventurous about war. He wished he were in a position to join, but he didn't feel we had any business going as things were. He felt... they all felt it would be too much to take, being surrounded by all that blood and carnage on a regular basis.

"I disagreed. I argued that Father worked in a hospital, surrounded by the injured and dying, and he did fine, and so had I when exposed to it. I hadn't enjoyed the time I'd spent in those situations during my medical training, but maintaining my presence of mind wasn't the issue, just discomfort. I felt I had the capacity, the physical control, to be able to deal with it.

"My family insisted that it was foolish to put a theory like that to the test, but I was decided. I joined the Army five days after the bombs fell on Pearl Harbour."

00000

"Are you finished already?" Adelaide asks in surprise when I enter the small sitting room across from the formal dining room I've never seen anyone use.

"Yes. I'm not sure..." I pause, taking a seat next to her on the couch as I try to find the words for what I want to say. "He seems very upset today."

"What were you talking about?"

"The war."

She nods, and says, "It's not something he really talks about."

"I didn't know what to say."

"It's probably best that you didn't say anything. He just needs some time to himself." She's quiet for a moment before she visibly perks up. "So, do you want an early lunch, or is there something else you'd like to do?"

I can't help but smile at the idea of finishing lunch early and maybe getting to see him sooner than usual.

"I could eat now."

Adelaide gives me an assessing look before commenting, "You seem awfully happy about the idea of lunch. You know it's only soup today."

"I like soup," I reply, trying to suppress the wide smile and giddy laughter that's welling up in my chest.

"Yes, you do seem rather fond of it."

"I am." I start laughing. Even though I know it's inappropriate, I don't seem to be able to stop.

"Have you been sleeping well lately?" Adelaide asks with a concerned look.

"Not particularly," I chuckle. Covering my face with my hands, I try to regain control of myself. Eventually the laughter dies down, but my chest still hitches with half-gasped breaths, and I'm trembling a little bit.

"Are you alright, Bella?"

"I'm really not sure." I feel like I'm losing my mind.

00000

Walking through the halls towards the library I feel... better. It's hard to say I feel normal when the feeling in my chest is steadily increasing with each step, but I seem to have gotten control of myself again.

I turn the last corner and stop short as the pulsing mass expands to fill my chest. Usually when he gets here before me he's waiting in the library, but today he's standing just outside the doors. He smiles when he sees me, and walks closer, stopping a few feet away.

"Good morning, Isabella," he greets politely.

"Good morning." Every attempt I've made to get his name or anything else remotely personal has been effectively dodged with a frustratingly practiced ease, although I don't seem to be able to keep anything to myself around him. Lucky for me, he has yet to touch on any truly embarrassing subjects, like my propensity for staring at him for prolonged periods, or my willingness to spend time with mysterious strangers who indirectly refuse to tell me something as basic as their first name. Although I have no idea what I'd say if he did. _I_ can barely even make sense of my motivations let alone explain them for someone else to understand.

"I thought we could walk outside today, if that's alright with you. It's not sunny, and it isn't terribly warm, but there hasn't been any rain."

"Oh... yes, alright."

"Good," he says, smiling softly, before his expression becomes unsure. "I brought you a sweater. I thought you might need it."

I glance down at his empty hands and then return my focus to his face with a questioning look.

"On the table," he says, angling his head in the direction of a hall table against the wall. My thick red sweater is sitting, neatly folded, in the exact centre of the table.

"Do you often go through women's closets?"

One side of his mouth turns up in a smirk, and he replies, "Only when I'm looking for something specific."

"You didn't quite answer my question." He rarely ever does.

"Are you ready to go?"

"Sure." I shrug on my sweater and follow him down the hall to the front door.

00000

"I used to work there when I was in school. When I graduated, they offered me a job and I took it." I look up as we walk down the tree-lined laneway, watching the canopy of leaves above us rustle and shift in the wind.

"Would you have stayed in Phoenix if you'd had to look for a job?" I shift my gaze to him when he speaks, and I can't look away. That's been happening to me a lot. As soon as I'm reminded of how perfect he is, it's like I can't look away until I find a flaw, just one little physical imperfection. I never do. Hand in hand with the need to stare is the urge to touch, to reach out and feel the skin of his cheek, the curve of his jaw, the bones of his wrist under my fingers. As embarrassing as it is to admit, even to myself, I'm absolutely convinced he knows. He must. He always keeps himself just out of reach, in every sense.

The thing in my chest clenches harshly, and I wince as my breath stutters. I wave off his concerned look, force a reassuring smile, and try to find my way back into the conversation.

"I've spent most of my life in Phoenix. I don't think I ever really considered moving away."

"Because you wanted to be close to your mother?"

"It doesn't really matter where I live. I'm never _really_ going to be close to my mom. We've always been very different people."

The thick grey clouds overhead shift, and sunlight pours down onto the path ahead through an opening in the leaves. I move forward, turning my face to catch the scarce rays. The delicate heat presses softly against my skin, and with my eyes closed I almost feel like I'm standing in the weak morning light of home.

The concentrated centre of the thing moves, orientating itself towards him as he moves. It's something that's developed slowly during my time with him. The all-encompassing feeling that expands in his presence has become lighter on the edges, shifting that energy to the centre, so that I can breathe, and speak, and think, but still feel it sitting in my chest.

I open my eyes, turning my head to face him. He's standing back in the deep shade of the mossy trees crawling with vines. I can't help but smile at the intense contrast between his flawless appearance, with his pressed black pants and white dress shirt, and the untended nature behind him. The only thing you could describe as even remotely unruly about him is his hair, and even that seems... pristine, like it's just exactly the way it's supposed to be. If his perfection wasn't so beautiful, I might describe it as disturbing, perfection beyond the realm of reason.

"What are you doing over there?" I call out to him.

"I'm standing," he replies with a smirk, putting his hands into his pants pockets.

"But why are you standing over there?"

"I like it over here." I consider telling him just how difficult he's being, but I'm sure he already knows.

"You're missing the sun."

"I don't like the sun."

"What do you mean you don't _like_ the sun? How can you not like the sun? The sun is life. With no sun you have no plants, with no plants you have no animals, and without those you don't have any people."

"People _are_ animals."

"Right... of course, but that wasn't my point."

"I prefer the moon," he says with a shrug.

"The inconstant moon?"

"Don't tell me you judge ancient celestial bodies based on the ramblings of an infatuated thirteen-year-old."

"_Infatuated_? People don't kill themselves over infatuations."

"People kill themselves for a lot of reasons. They aren't always good ones," he says seriously.

"What's the point of avoiding Ethan Church's novels if you already think like that?"

"Like what?"

"Like... everything is bad, like life and people are completely horrible."

"The books tell stories, unpleasant stories about crumbling people, but they aren't intended as an analysis of life or mankind in general."

"I thought you didn't read them."

"I don't. That doesn't mean I don't know what's in them. There's a big difference between knowing and experiencing."

"And you're trying to avoid the experience? I suppose I can understand that."

"It doesn't seem like you enjoy reading them very much."

"I find it very... unsettling."

"Then why would you read them?"

I let my eyes fall closed and turn back to the sun, before replying, "I had to."

There's a long moment of silence; the only sounds are the leaves brushing against each other in the breeze and my quiet, even breaths. If it weren't for the thing in my chest telling me he hasn't moved, I'd think I was alone.

"The moon is a light in the dark, Isabella," he says softly. I look over and find him watching me intently, studying me. The thing in my chest flips; it's almost a graceful feeling.

After a while he breaks the moment by mumbling, "We should get back."

I nod, walking into the shadows to follow him.

00000

I mentally curse myself as I make my way back down the dark hallway to the washroom. I had been tucked into bed with the lights off, on the verge of sleep, when I realized I'd forgotten to brush my teeth.

I could justify it by saying I was tired, but the truth is I was distracted. My mind was occupied gathering the scant pieces of him that I have and trying to fit them together to find something new. I've become obsessed with him, with everything I know about him and everything I don't. If I'm going to admit that, there's really no point in denying the reason behind it.

I'm falling in love with an impossible man.


	8. Revelation

**A/N:** Beta'd by Miss Poison (Twilighted) and Feisty Y. Beden (FFn).

I want to address some comments I've gotten about the last chapter. Some people were wondering why Bella didn't notice that Ethan Church was born the year WW1 ended, so he wouldn't have been conscious of the war while it was happening.

"_I always regretted the fact that I wasn't able to participate in the First World War..."_

He wanted to go, but couldn't, which could be because he was only a baby at the time and later wished he had been old enough to go. Of course that isn't the only interpretation.

Ethan Church now has a beautiful new banner by time_lights (over at lj) that you can see on my profile page.

**Revelation**

My dreams are much more solid when I wake up this morning. I still can't hold onto the words, but the fading echo of distant gunshots and the impression of foreign skies stretching over bloody soil follow me into the waking world. I shudder as I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to rid my mind of the claustrophobic feeling of fear and despair that was pressing in. I think that's what woke me up earlier than usual.

I briefly consider going back to sleep, but I feel too wired to lie still. I push off the bedding and climb down, cringing when my toes touch the cold wood floor.

I follow the sound of raindrops tapping against glass to the window, pressing my fingertips to the cool panes.

The gardens are little more than inky shadows in the early morning dark. I have an urge that's independent from this thing in my chest, which almost makes it feel foreign, but it shouldn't. This is what wanting something used to feel like, what it's _supposed_ to feel like. I want to go down there, to wander in the hedges brought to life by the night like they were before, but that isn't really what I want. I want him, but I don't know where to look.

I've wondered before where he goes when I can't feel him near me, but I've never been able to come up with a satisfactory answer.

I stand by the window, watching the rain fall, until my eyes start to feel heavy again, and then I go back to bed. I'll see him when he comes to me. It'll have to be enough.

00000

I'm sitting at the table, watching Adelaide move around the kitchen as she makes breakfast when a question pops into my head. It's out of my mouth before I can really think about it. "Do you work here?"

"What?" She pauses what she's doing to turn to me.

"I'm sorry. I was just curious. I didn't mean for it to sound so... rude."

She smiles at me kindly and says, "No, I live here. I just happen to be the only one who can cook."

"But your mother worked here?" I ask uncertainly.

Adelaide seems to struggle with her words for a moment before she says, "I think it would be more appropriate to say that my mother self-appointed herself the housekeeper, although she wasn't meant to be. Her family was fairly working class, and she was a strong believer in earning your way in life. She always said she did it because somebody had to and it gave her something to do, but I've always felt it had more to do with actively providing for me and earning her right to live here. She was a very proud woman."

"I don't suppose you'd tell me why your mother moved here in the first place."

"I'm afraid that's part of Mr. Church's story. You'll have to wait until he gets there."

"Why do you call him Mr. Church if you live here?"

Adelaide's face goes blank with surprise, and then she carefully responds, "I usually use his first name when I speak to him." I nod. This conversation seems to be making her uncomfortable, so I let it drop and move onto something else.

"Do you know anything about the..." I hesitate for a few seconds, trying to find the right words, but nothing comes to me so I resort to the default she's set for these conversations. "...ghost?"

"Why? Have you seen him again?" I've been keeping my time with him to myself so far in an effort to avoid having to explain things I don't really understand, like why he has such an interest in talking to me every day.

"Umm... yes."

"Oh." She gets quiet after that, silently serving up breakfast with a thoughtful look on her face.

00000

"I've always been a very private person. I've always thought of myself as self-contained, someone who doesn't have to rely on others to work through the problems in their life or to be happy. I tend to avoid talking about myself, which is one of the reasons why I've remained so hidden from the public.

"Because of this, I found living with a group of strangers to be very difficult. When I was with my family I had places I could go, things I could do to separate myself for a time, but in the middle of a war, personal space is almost nonexistent. I was constantly surrounded by young men trying to grapple with the difference between what they expected and the reality they'd found themselves in.

"My perceptive nature made it especially difficult to be surrounded during times of action. One night a few months into my service we were camped out near an abandoned factory. It was just before sunset when the bombs started to fall around us.

"We had been traveling all day, so I really hadn't had any time to be on my own, and I hadn't been able to eat properly in days. The atmosphere of panic, fear, anger, and regret started closing in on all sides. I couldn't take it anymore. I felt like I needed to crawl out of my own skin. Obviously that wasn't an option, so I did the next best thing. I walked away.

"I headed towards the old factory. I'm not entirely sure why. I was distracted, barely lucid at this point, but I suppose, in my addled brain, the only building in the area seemed the most logical place to go."

Church lets out a deep, ragged breath, his unfocused gaze falling somewhere around the edge of the table between us. Whatever he's seeing is far, far away from this small, comfortable room.

"I wasn't very aware of my surroundings. I had what I suppose people mean when they refer to 'tunnel vision.' It always seemed a very odd concept to me. Certainly there were times when I'd become inordinately engrossed in something, but never at the cost of my other senses. But in this instance, as far as I was concerned, that decrepit factory was the only thing there. The bombs, the planes, the people were all gone.

"As a man who has always prided himself on his levelheadedness, it's difficult to say, but I had, in a sense, lost my mind. In my head it was as if nothing outside of that moment existed, including myself. It was as if I had ceased to be. I simply was the moment. I'm not sure if that makes sense. I have my doubts that it does, but I find it an extraordinarily difficult thing to describe properly, which is also a hard thing for me to admit. An author who can't describe one of the most momentous moments in their own life, it's almost ironic, or at the very least somewhat poetic. Like a portrait artist who can't draw themselves... or something to that effect.

"Of course making the statement that _I was the moment_, although wonderfully dramatic, is somewhat inaccurate. It would be more accurate to say that I was _my perception_ of the moment, as the majority of the moment was out of my awareness. One of my biggest regrets is my lack of awareness in that brief period."

Church frowns. He seems hesitant to continue, opening his mouth only to soundlessly close it more than once before he lets out a defeated sigh.

"If I had been paying attention I would've been aware that people were following me. I can't say I'm surprised that my state of mind was clear to see, although I'd be lying if I said I understood why anyone would be paying attention to me at that time, let alone the two soldiers who decided to follow me. I suppose their intention was to corral me. Any verbal attempts they made to get my attention went unheard, so while I was walking, almost stumbling, they were running to catch up to me. They never did reach me though.

"I was there, so close I almost could've reached out and touched the wall. They had almost caught up with me; a dozen more hurried steps and they would've closed the gap, I'm told. It was in this instant that the factory was hit. The building exploded; flames and debris filled the air around me. I realized they were there behind me when I smelled the burning flesh. Just like that, I was back to myself, but of course it was too late. The damage had been done.

"One of them died instantly. The other was seriously injured, barely alive by the time they got him to the closest field hospital. There was nothing they could do for me."

He pauses, a look of pain crossing his face. I look again at the burn scars covering his hands and what I can see of his arms. I wonder if his legs were damaged at the same time as his flesh burned. My stomach churns at the thought.

"After that, I rather unceremoniously left the army. The war was still going on, but obviously continuing on wasn't an option. I went home to live with my family again. I don't think any of them really knew how to deal with me when I came back. I didn't really know how to deal with them either. I wasn't the happiest person before I left, but I was broken when I returned. I barely knew myself anymore.

"They did everything they could to make me feel as if I'd never left, but... they were all so content in their happiness and love. After being surrounded by so much pain and fear during the war, it was shocking, almost painful. It felt wrong to be there. I was out of step, out of place in my former life.

"Of course they weren't always happy. It hurt them to see how much I'd changed. My father actually tried to apologize to me once, because he'd helped me to enlist, against his better judgment. It was ridiculous for him to think he was responsible. It was my decision, and he couldn't force me to listen to him.

"Their deep happiness was hard enough to take, but knowing that I was ruining that for them was even worse. It was less than a month before I left again. I wandered around for awhile, trying to figure out what I was going to do with myself.

"One day I came across this house out in the woods. It was in a less than ideal state, having been abandoned years ago. I felt a connection with it, like I related to it, which is an odd thing to say about a building, but it's true. I decided I wanted to restore it.

"Most of the damage was fairly superficial, so it wasn't long before the house was liveable, which brought up the question _who was going to live here?_ I hadn't really thought of occupying the house. It was more like a project I felt the need to see through, but now I had a house. I had a large, empty house. I thought briefly of trying to sell it, but the reason it was abandoned in the first place was that very few people want to live in an old house in the middle of the woods, even if it does have lovely gardens. I restored those too, which actually took longer than the house itself."

It seems odd to think of the gardens as being manmade. It makes sense I suppose; hedges don't naturally arrange themselves into pathways and neatly enclosed spaces, but my impression of them comes from _that_ night, and there didn't seem to be anything natural or controlled about them then. Of course nothing about that night seems normal.

"I hadn't been able to write since I finished my third book at the beginning of my enlistment, and without that outlet I wasn't sure how to deal with my feelings of remorse and guilt. My emotional turmoil had always revolved around myself, but now it was about other people. By trying to save lives, I destroyed them, and I had no idea how to make it right.

"I contacted my lawyer, the one I used to maintain my anonymity regarding publishing matters, and had him find the man who had been injured, and the family of the man who died. The injured man was still in the hospital, being treated for severe trauma. I paid his bills and had him moved to a better hospital, made sure he got the best treatment available.

"The widow of the man who died was another story. She was on her own with a small daughter and was working very hard to provide for them, but she wouldn't take my money. In fact, I deeply offended her by offering. She never held her husband's death against me, but I'm not sure she ever _really_ forgave me for trying to supplement her income."

A huff of laughter escapes from Church, and he smiles nostalgically.

"Absolutely impossible woman," he mumbles quietly.

"When the man was released from the hospital, I invited him to come and live here in the still largely empty house I'd been staying in. I also invited the widow, but that also deeply offended her, so she declined.

"I wrote her a letter, taking a more personal approach. I told her just how sorry I was. I explained how, although I clearly had, I never intended to offend her and was only trying, in a small way, to make up for what I had taken from her by providing the financial support he was no longer able to give. She finally relented and agreed to move here. I think she felt sorry for me, to be honest."

"Adelaide," I state quietly.

"What?"

"Adelaide was the child of the man who died."

"Yes."

"What happened to the man who was injured?" As soon as I'm finished asking the question I open my mouth again to apologize for it, but he answers before I get the chance.

"He lived here until he died."

00000

I spend most of lunch in thoughtful silence, constantly turning over Church's words from this morning in my head. Amongst other things, it brought up the troubling idea that he, my impossible man from the gardens, might not only be dead, but also Adelaide's father. In which case he's married, or was when he died and may still consider himself to be. Although whether or not a dead man considers himself married hardly seems to make much of a difference; it certainly doesn't make him any less dead. Maybe he's the injured soldier who came to live here and then died sometime later. I much prefer that possibility.

00000

It's a different path today, a narrow, winding line of packed dirt edged with thick underbrush and towering trees.

"Does this actually lead anywhere?"

"I told you I wanted to show you something," he responds without turning to look back at me.

"Well, how do I know you didn't want to show me this?"

"You think I wanted to show you a dirt path in the woods?" he asks, turning to me with a raised eyebrow.

"Maybe."

He smiles and says, "We're not going much farther."

"_Where_ are we going?"

He momentarily disappears around a tight bend, and when I round the corner he's standing a little ways ahead by a low stone wall that disappears into the trees. There's a thin arch over the path with _Ferndale Creek_ engraved into the top. His hand is resting on an intricate wrought iron gate of delicately winding vines with leaves and flowers.

"We're here," he says quietly, unlatching the gate and pulling it open. He's gotten very serious all of a sudden, and it makes my footsteps hesitant. I walk past him slowly, keeping my eyes on his until I pass through the arch. My breath catches, and my hands shoot out to grasp onto the rough stones on either side of me to keep from falling when my body abruptly stops moving forward.

"Isabella?" It comes from behind me, soft and worried, spurring me back into action.

I release my grip, brushing the fragments of rock and mortar off my hands as I move forward to let him through. There's the metallic click of the gate closing behind me, and for a second I could swear he's standing right behind me, close enough to touch if I lean back, but when I look he's beside me, the ever-present ocean of space between us.

In front of us is a shallow valley packed with giant ferns. There's a small, rocky creek running through the middle with a narrow dirt footpath beside it, but the most prominent feature is the life-size marble statue of an angel situated in the ferns. One hand is over her heart, and the other one is extended out, palm up as if she's offering something.

He silently starts walking down the path towards the creek, and I follow, stopping when he stops at the bank of the water directly across from the angel. Now that we're closer I can see the folds in her dress, the curls in her hair, the peaceful expression on her face. Water drips from her outstretched hand and the bottom tips of her strong-looking wings, making a tapping sound when the drops hit the ferns below her. The feathery fronds almost completely cover the square base she stands on, reaching up to brush against her bare feet.

It takes me a while to realize that there's script on the base. Most of it is obscured by the ferns, but I can see a few letters with formal loops and some numbers underneath.

"What does it say?"

"Constance Irene Briant, January 17th, 1912 – November 30th, 1955."

"Who's Constance?"

"Adelaide's mother."

"Adelaide Briant?"

"Adelaide Irene Briant." So his last name could be Briant. I wonder if it would be possible to look up the name of Constance's husband. I would have to go somewhere with a computer. When do I have to go home for Mom's wedding? It must be coming up soon.

"Her mother is buried here?"

"No, she's buried in a cemetery next to her husband. This is just a memorial." _Her husband_. Maybe he is the man who was injured.

"Did Church love her?" It's very elaborate for something that isn't marking the actual grave.

"Yes, but not in the sense you mean."

"Then how?"

He's quiet for a moment, staring thoughtfully at the statue. "She forgave him even when he couldn't forgive himself. You can't not love someone like that, but it wasn't romantic."

"How do you fit into all of this? Or am I not allowed to know until your part of the story comes up?"

"Maybe I'm not a part of the story at all."

"I find that hard to believe."

He turns towards me, studying my face closely. "Why do you say that?"

I smile and answer, "Because it's true. That's usually why I say things."

00000

I wake up in the dark with words ringing through my head, but this time they're not off to the edges. I know what they are. They're Church's words, fragments of them anyway. Pieces of his story and lines from his books, but they aren't in Church's voice, they're in _his_, the man from the gardens. The thing twists and thrashes in my chest, and I can barely breathe around it.

It explains the lack of affect from Church himself and the lessened effect of the story. It's been tempered by someone else's intonation and speech patterns, comments and asides that didn't come from him.

It's his voice because they're his words, his story, his writing, his books, but it's impossible. He can't be a ghost _and_ be Church, can he? He's too young or the books are too old; either way they shouldn't fit together, but they do. They just _are_.

He really is impossible.

**A/N:** Ethan Church now has a thread on Twilighted - http://www(dot)twilighted(dot)?f=33&t=6621


	9. Confrontation

**A/N:** Beta'd by Miss Poison (Twilighted) and Feisty Y. Beden (FFn).

**Confrontation**

I think I'm suffocating. There's a lump in my throat that has materialized out of nothing into something solid, and I can't seem to swallow around it. I feel like I could choke on it at any minute. The thing in my chest has become large and heavy, pressing down on my lungs and heart, while the blankets seem to have thickened, pinning me to the bed. My breathing picks up, my chest heaving with the effort of pulling air into my strangled lungs.

I need to get out of here.

I push myself into a sitting position with my weighted, clunky limbs, and throw off the bedding in a panicked haste. I stumble out of bed, and my unsteady legs give out under me, dropping me to my knees with a hard thud. Wincing, I pull myself up using the nightstand and stumble out of my room. The stairs creak under my carelessly heavy footsteps, and my knees twinge with each impact. My vision starts to blur from my constant heavy breaths, so I sit down on the steps, head between my knees, and try to find some kind of control.

I don't _know_ anything. I _feel_ that the dying man isn't the source of the Ethan Church books. I strongly _think_ that the man from the garden created them, but I have no proof, no empirical evidence to support my claims. Vague stories and strange reactions don't prove anything. I might be wrong. I might be insane. Maybe the man from the gardens doesn't really exist at all.

My life was so much simpler when reality and dreams were properly differentiated. It seems like the unreal, the illogical, is stealthily bleeding over into the real until I can't tell them apart anymore. None of this makes sense, but I can't seem to make myself believe it's untrue. They're _his_ words, even if he shouldn't have been alive to put them together.

Maybe he is both, Church and a ghost, but then when would he have died? During the explosion in the war? That would make him about twenty-three. It's almost impossible to say if that's how old he looks. He's strangely young and old at the same time, making his age almost impossible to guess with any certainty.

If he is Ethan Church, maybe he wrote me the letters, made the notes in my translations. The need to act, to do _something_ surges through me, and I stand up, racing back to my room to dig his first letter out of my things.

My eyes quickly scan the familiar words, looking for... I don't know exactly. Something I missed, something with a meaning I didn't recognize, something that will make everything clear to me. Of course there isn't. It's formal and basic, and exactly what I remember it being. I read it over again and again, but it isn't until the fourth time that my eyes get caught on the last paragraph:

_**As you may be aware, I'm not exactly known for being forthcoming with personal information. I understand that may cause you to question the validity of what I tell you, but I give you my word, my promise, that everything I say will be the truth. I intend to tell you my real story, for as long as you're willing to listen.**_

He promised. He promised to tell me the truth, and he lied. It's all been lies. Some kind of a show put on to keep me from the truth, which still escapes me. The realization is crushing.

This wasn't a game to me. All the truth he pulled out of me, and he's been feeding me lies, which is infinitely worse than the neutral lack of truth I thought I'd been getting. Anger spikes in my chest. The letter crumples in my hand as I rush back downstairs, heading for the only place I've ever found him, the gardens.

It's raining when I burst outside, making the grass slick and the moonlight grey. I lose my footing more than once on my way to the opening in the hedges, staining the heels of my hands an uneven light green. When I get into the gardens the hedges break my fall, little sharp branches slashing into my hands and arms, leaving shallow, stinging lines in my skin like oversized paper cuts.

Although I didn't set a specific destination in my mind, I've been comparing all the enclosures I've come across to the one I first found him in. I have this idea that if I find that place, I'll be able to find him again, but my memories of everything outside of him in that moment are just hazy background. It probably doesn't matter anyway. I have no reason to believe he's there. I have no reason to believe I'm capable of finding him. Panic starts to bubble up inside me at the thought. I have to find him.

I stop where I am and spin around a few times, trying to feel something, see something, that will lead me where I want to go, but there's nothing.

"Where are you?" I yell it as loud as I can, but it sounds flat, the sound absorbed by the surrounding hedges and grass to the point that I don't think it got any farther than this enclosure. I still try again and again until it feels like I'm choking on the words.

Nothing around me changes, but something starts to well up in my chest, drowning out the anger; betrayal. He didn't just lie. He lied _to me_. The thing, large and heavy in my chest, starts to feel like it's tearing, ripping right down the middle. It burns like an open wound. It rapidly gains in size, starts to feel more alive, which only makes it hurt worse, burn more. It seems like it might explode when he says my name.

By the time my brain has processed that I need to turn, he's coming around in front of me, still keeping his careful distance. He looks confused and worried as his eyes flit over me. I'm sure if I cared enough to look I'd find that I'm a mess.

"Isabella?" he says again, one of his arms raised away from his body slightly like he's half-reaching towards me, but the fingers are clenched together. It brings up the image of the angel statue's hand, reaching and open, no half-measures or hesitations. The hands are similar though; neither looks real.

"Isabella, what are you doing out here?"

My eyes lock onto his before I state, "You lied to me." It comes out as a quiet statement, my energy for anger and accusations gone.

"What?" His expression becomes cautious, and his hand is drawn back to his side.

"You promised me you wouldn't, but you did."

"I didn't."

My anger flares back with his denial, and my voice raises as I reply, "You did; you promised." My hands clench, and I feel the crumpled letter that's somehow still held in my fingers. I throw it to the ground, and it lands in a damp and crinkled ball at his feet before I grind out, "You promised."

He stands perfectly still for a moment, staring at the paper, before he slowly leans down to pick it up. His fingers gingerly tease the ball apart, pulling it flat so he can read it.

"You think I'm Ethan Church." It's a statement. His eyes rise briefly to meet mine, before returning to the letter.

"I know you are."

His thumb runs over the page before he folds it into squares and puts it in his pocket.

"That's impossible."

"You're impossible." He is, completely. It's impossible that he exists. It's impossible that he could still be alive. It's impossible that he could be mine.

I cringe as the rift in the thing opens a little further.

"Do you have any idea what you do to people? What you do to me?" The thing decides it wants to claw its way out, and my hands fly up to my chest, trying to hold it in. I can't blame it. I don't want to be in here right now either. "You can't do that to people. It isn't right." My voice breaks at the end, and my shoulders hunch forward as pain shoots through my torso. I fall to my knees on the wet grass with a whimper, tears clouding my vision.

He makes a pained noise, and suddenly he's kneeling on the ground in front of me, his folded legs on the outside of mine.

"Bella." The longing in his voice seems to drive the pain deeper into my chest. When I raise my eyes, his cautiously neutral expression has broken open. He looks grief-stricken.

His hands reach out and touch mine. I watch in wonder as his fingers wrap around mine, pulling them away from my chest. I finally have the chance to touch him, but all my brain seems to be able to do is focus on the texture of his skin. It doesn't feel like skin at all; instead it's hard and smooth like polished stone, but animate. One touch and the thing starts to pulse and spark, slowly pulling itself back together.

He places my hands on my lap, and presses his palm right over the thing in my chest, his fingertips brushing the undersides of my breasts. It swells under his hand, pressing outward until it fills my entire ribcage.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, barely loud enough for me to hear. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know."

His words cause my mind to start spinning, wondering if he feels something like this thing too, but then he says my name sadly, lightly ghosting the fingers of his other hand over the slashes on my neck and arms, and I lose that train of thought.

"Who are you?"

"Edward. I'm Edward," he replies quietly, brushing his thumb across my cheek before he cradles my jaw in his hand. I push against his hand, trying to get closer while fighting the urge to wrap myself around him.

Edward. His name is _Edward_, such a normal name for such a preternatural man. It's not particularly common today, but there must have been thousands, maybe millions of men who have been named Edward, and I highly doubt any of them were anything like him. I find it hard to believe there's anyone else like him.

Both his hands move at once, one arm going under my thighs and the other across my back, before he lifts me closer to him. With his legs underneath me, his arms around me, and his face pressing into my neck, it feels like he's trying to curl around me, pull me inside him. I wish he could.

It can't be healthy to need him like this, to want to become an inseparable part of somebody I barely know.

His hair brushes against my cheek, and I bring my arms up around his neck, holding him against me. We sit still for a few moments as the light rain further dampens my nightclothes and hair.

With a sigh, I mutter, "You're not old enough to be you." My arms tighten around him, afraid my words will make him disappear again. He might not come back this time.

"I am."

"You don't look it."

"No, I don't."

"Are you going to tell me why?"

Edward tenses, then lifts his head to look at me. "Eventually," he replies with a small, sad smile.

I consider asking him what he's waiting for, but I hesitate to push the subject. I'm not sure I'm ready to hear the answer. There must be a reason he's not telling me, something he thinks I won't want to hear, and it scares me a little that he's guarding it so closely, but at the same time I find it difficult to believe it could be something so horrible that it warrants this kind of secrecy. _Eventually_ is a point in time that's present, but indistinct, yet to be defined, and that seems to suit us both for now.

He studies my face after he speaks, waiting for my reaction. I return his smile and touch his cheek. I don't know how many times I've imagined what it would be like to touch him, but I wasn't even close. I hadn't accounted for his smooth, hard skin, cooled from the wind and rain with no discernable body heat to drive the chill away. For an instant the idea that he's a statue come to life flickers through my mind, and I can't help but laugh. Ghosts I can believe, but apparently animated statues are a step too far.

"What?" he asks quietly, running a finger over my smiling lips.

"Nothing."

His expression alters into a scowl for a second before he looks at me thoughtfully, and then he slowly leans towards me. My breath hitches and stills right before his lips brush against mine so lightly I'm not even sure they touch, except that my lips feel cooler than they did before.

Seconds that feel like eternities pass before he leans in again, lips pressing, but still against mine. It feels like my first kiss. It's my only kiss as far as my mind can conjure at the moment, but deep down I know that isn't true. The thing in my chest flips and floats, and I get that electric weightless feeling through my body like when you're at the top peak of a rollercoaster, just before you start hurtling down.

He starts to pull away, and my body reacts before my brain can catch up, putting my hands against his jaw, fingertips buried in his hair as my lips press against his. He exhales into my mouth in surprise, before one hand tangles in the back of my damp hair while the other arm tightens around my waist, squishing me against him, and now we're really kissing. The thing in my chest shatters, pouring live wire electricity into my bloodstream, sparking a frenzy inside me. I really think I could lose myself in this feeling, and that idea doesn't bother me as much as it probably should.

I want to get rid of his shirt and touch his chest, feel the weight of him on top of me, feel his hands on my hips, but our position is restrictive and his hold on me is solid, impossible for me to break or alter. I grunt in frustration, tugging on his hair in an effort to get him to move. Instead his mouth goes to just below my jaw, so I breathlessly tell him to put me down. His hand untangles from my hair and moves to the top of my back before he hitches me higher against his chest. Leaning forward, he lays me down on the wet ground.

For a second I feel a little ridiculous lying on the grass in my nightgown on a rainy night with a near stranger kneeling in front of me. Logically speaking I should stop whatever it is that's about to happen with whoever or whatever he is, but logic doesn't seem to have much standing in matters around here. Whatever it is I'm feeling right now certainly has nothing to do with logic, and at the moment I'm finding it infinitely more persuasive.

I push myself up into a sitting position, wincing as the tender heels of my hands are forced to lift my upper body, and reach forward to pull his shirt up over his head. In my haste my nails scratch over his abdomen, making the quiet, hollow sound of fingernails gliding across granite. I push the shirt up as far as I can before he lifts it out of my reach and tosses it behind him.

Almost immediately his hands land on my knees, brushing along my legs as he bunches my nightgown up to the top of my thighs. One hand goes under me and lifts me from the ground while the other moves the fabric from beneath me. The movement is quick and without warning. I squeak in surprise, momentarily stunned by the strength he has in one hand. As he gathers the fabric over my head, the sharp sound of fabric tearing snaps me back into the moment.

Leaning forward to kiss me, his bare chest presses against mine, guiding me back down to the wet grass. My hands skim down his sides, relishing in the previously hidden skin, until I reach his pants. I attempt to undo his belt, but my fingers are clumsy and frantic, and I can't get them to operate the way I want them to. He brushes my fingers away, and does it himself. I move my hands to his back and try to wrap my mind around this. It's all more than a little overwhelming to think about. I don't know him, but I need him. He lied to me, but I love him. And now he's above me, his unnatural, bizarre, perfect skin touching mine, his cool, smooth back under my fingers, and his breath against my cheek. It's everything I wanted and more than I ever thought I could have all at once.

My heart is pounding, my breath is ragged, and I'm almost shaking from the nervous, frantic, excited energy surging through my body. I don't even want to think about how surreal this all feels. That'll only lead to wondering if I've further confused dreams and reality, that maybe this isn't really happening, and I definitely don't want my mind to go there.

My breath catches in my throat as he pulls my leg up over his waist, and the other automatically bends to accommodate him. With his forehead pressed against the grass beside my head, his chin tucked against my shoulder, he pushes himself inside me. I arch up against him, my stomach pushing firmly against his, as my nails glide across his back, looking for traction they won't find.

And then he starts to move, and I lose all my words.

There's a low rumble building deep inside him that I can feel in my chest where it touches his. I start to laugh, because it tickles on my hypersensitive skin, but it comes out choked as my legs tighten around his hips.

He lifts his torso from mine, turning his face away as he stills. A low, dangerous sound is muffled into his shoulder, and I can hear his fingers tearing into the ground beside me. His head drops down between his shoulders when the noise stops, and then he becomes unnaturally still. Even the arms bearing his weight above me are motionless, showing no signs of strain.

I brush my fingertips against the smooth, stationary muscles of his arm, and his head rises to look at me, his eyes staring into mine.

"Did I scare you?" His voice is quiet and even, while my breathing is still choppy.

I shake my head in response. He cocks his head to the side and looks at me like he doesn't quite believe me. It is true though. I've heard him make sounds like that before, although in the hallway on my first night here the experience was something I wouldn't describe as anything less than terrifying, but this is different: different tone, different reaction, different context.

Edward lowers his chest down against mine, but I barely feel the weight. His mouth brushes across my cheek, kissing the corner of my jaw, as he moves out of me. The light rain starts to land on my bare skin when he settles next to me on his side.

He's quiet for a moment, his hand splayed across my hip and stomach, before he quietly asks, "Would you stay if I asked you to?"

It takes my mind a few seconds to process his words. When it does, I instantly know my answer without even thinking about it, and I desperately want to tell him, but the logic that dictated my life previous to all this takes hold. I think I've reached my limit of impulsive, irrational decisions, at least until I understand what's going on. So instead I ask, "Stay for how long?"

"Forever." My heart skips, and my mind goes blank. I close my eyes to collect my thoughts, to keep the tenuous hold I've regained on my rational side.

"You haven't answered my question yet."

"You never actually asked." Playing back the conversation I realize it's true. I talked around it. I still have to find the words for the real question, and the nerve to voice them.

"If I asked, would you tell me?"

His lips turn up in a small smile, before he replies, "Eventually."

"I'll answer yours after you've answered mine," I state firmly. Part of me wants to just say _yes_ and dismiss all these things as eccentricities, but I know that's not what they are. They're signifiers of something larger, something more important, and as much as I want to ignore them, I need to know what he's hiding. I need to know _him_, completely... eventually.

He sighs and rests his head against my shoulder.

"I think I'd like your answer better if you told me before rather than after that conversation happens." His hand tightens around my hip.

"I don't know anything about you," I say quietly. My eyes are starting to feel heavy as I look up at the starry sky.

"Of course you do; I just wasn't the one who told you."

**A/N:** Ethan Church has a thread on Twilighted - http://www(dot)twilighted(dot)?f=33&t=6621


	10. Daylight

**A/N:** Beta'd by Miss Poison (Twilighted) and Feisty Y. Beden (FFn).

**Daylight**

As soon as my mind slips out of sleep and into consciousness, I try to fight it. I try to ignore my newly regained self-awareness that informs me that my muscles are tired and slightly sore, and that, despite the fact that my bed is warm, my body is slightly cool, which means I probably have a chill, but it's too late. I'm awake.

I slowly roll off my stomach and onto my side with a quiet groan and reluctantly open my eyes. There's a moment of confusion when, instead of seeing the white framed window with thin white and yellow curtains from my bedroom in Phoenix, I find myself looking at windows in dark wood frames with thick light blue curtains. It passes quickly after I realize it's just a rare sunny day in Forks. The feeling of sleepy calm this leaves me with only lasts until I realize that even if the sun did come out here every morning I would still be up before sunrise. There's a burst of panic in the pit of my stomach as I scramble to sit up. I've overslept. What time is it? How long have I kept them waiting?

I glance over at the clock; it's nearly two in the afternoon. Why didn't Adelaide wake me? How long did Church wait before taking his medication? Is he still waiting?

"Bella, what are you doing?" The words startle me, but the hand that touches my shoulder makes me jump. Most of his palm is on the shoulder of my nightgown, but where his fingertips touch my skin it's like a static shock, except the electricity comes from under my skin and shudders its way towards the surface, towards his touch. The thing has evolved. It's still concentrated in my chest, but the edges are gone and it seems to have diffused through the rest of my body, humming under my skin.

Edward. I was in the gardens last night with Edward.

Oh.

I hesitate for an instant before turning to face him. I freeze as soon as I see him.

People say skin is white, but they don't mean _white_. They mean peach and cream and pink and tan, but in direct midday sunlight Edward's skin is _white_: monochromatic white with the smooth, slightly polished finish of granite or marble. How is that even possible?

The statue theory I dismissed so easily last night comes back to mind. I can easily imagine him stepping down from a base like the angel in the ferns is standing on. Could he have been a grave marker too? Maybe that of Ethan Church, and somehow the soul got into the stone and animated it?

I think the only sensible thing to do at this point is to laugh at myself, but a part of me is more inclined to go hunting though the ferns looking for an empty pedestal.

A queasy, unsettled feeling starts to bubble up in my stomach. There are far too many unknowns to have any sense of security. I'm sure I could easily drive myself mad trying to guess, so I push it all aside until I'm ready to learn the truth. Maybe _willing_ is a better word. I don't know that I'll ever really be ready.

"Bella?" Edward's hand moves from my shoulder to the bare skin of my neck, trailing a tingling sensation behind his touch.

I smile in acknowledgment and lie back down, resting my head against his chest. Hesitantly, I put my hand on his bare stomach and focus on the feeling of it going up and down. It's oddly comforting to know that he breathes.

"How are you feeling?" It's an innocuous question, but I balk at the thought of attempting to answer it concisely. I feel happy, elated really, because whatever's been building between the two of us seems to have advanced into something else. I feel relieved because I now know Edward isn't a ghost, or at least not my idea of one. I feel anxious because of all the things I don't know about him. I feel nervous because at some point I may learn these things, and I think that scares me more than not knowing them does, which is troubling in and of itself.

I settle for something simple, although not completely satisfying. "I'm not really sure."

"Did I hurt you?" he presses.

"No." With a brief laugh, I lift my head and ask, "Did I seem pained to you?"

His face takes on an expression somewhere between frustration and embarrassment. It's odd watching his face move now that I've felt his skin. Something that feels like stone shouldn't be able to shift and stretch like that.

"I didn't think so, although you did seem a little dazed."

"More than a little. It seemed like everything was happening at once. I think my mind may have overloaded and shut down at some point."

"Well I was fairly overwhelmed, so I can only imagine how your brain would have handled it."

I cock my head to the side and give him a questioning look.

"Not that I think you're stupid," he adds quickly. "You're clearly not. I just meant... I'm not like you."

"So I've gathered."

"Because you're very smart." He pauses for a moment before asking, "That sounded condescending, didn't it?"

I just smile.

"Can we pretend _I'm_ smart and didn't say anything?"

"Or better yet, we could start over and you could take it as a compliment."

He grimaces and says, "I'm not good with those."

"No kidding," I mutter dryly.

"But it doesn't matter, because I'm being quiet now," he playfully whispers, pressing a finger against his lips.

"Not a bad idea, although I do have some questions I'd like you to answer first."

His expression turns wary, but he nods his consent.

"Who's Ethan Church?"

"I am, or perhaps it would be more appropriate to say no one is, since there's nothing behind the name but the books."

"So, who is he, the man who's been telling the story?"

"His name is Jonathan Adair. He was the young soldier who survived the bomb, barely. I think I nearly killed him again when I picked him up to take him to the doctor. I really didn't think he was going to survive."

"And he's been telling your story?"

"A glossed-over version of it, yes."

"And you wrote the books?"

"Yes."

"Why would you say you've never read them?"

"I haven't. Once they're written I never look at them again."

"But you have the books."

"The publishers send them to me. It didn't seem right to get rid of them. They are a part of me, whether I want them to be or not."

"You hate your own books. That seems like such a bizarre concept. Most of the authors I've met have seemed inordinately pleased with their own books."

"Well, I try not to be inordinately anything. It's very vulgar," he replies flippantly.

"Is it still vulgar if nobody knows you're the author?"

"Some people know. _I_ know. I don't think Jonathan's ever even considered reading them. He says he puts up with enough of me as it is, and Adelaide refers to them as "_those books"_ in a rather derogatory fashion, so I don't think any attempts at self-adulation would've been tolerated for long."

"Are they waiting for me? I should've been up hours ago."

"No, I already told them you're taking the day off. I think Jonathan could use it anyway. Adelaide's been giving me increasingly dirty looks lately."

"She's not happy about him doing the book."

"Oh, I know. I'm not particularly happy about it either. I put it off for too long, but it's impossible to change his mind at this point."

I nearly say something like _that sounds like him_, but then I realize I don't know _him_. I've sat in a room with him, listened to him speak for hours every day since I got here, but I don't know that I've ever met _him_, Jonathan Adair. There are some moments I can pinpoint where it seemed like someone else was coming through, moments that seemed more genuine, more animated than the rest, but I'm not sure it would be possible for me to go back and tease Jonathan out of Ethan Church.

"Bella?"

"Hmm?"

"Why were you in the gardens last night?"

"I was looking for you," I answer simply.

"No, I understand that, and I understand that you wanted to... discuss the letter," he says diplomatically, "but I don't understand why that came up last night. Did something happen?"

"I had this dream, and... I had to find you."

"A dream about the letter?"

"No, it was about you."

"Me? What about me?"

"It was... I don't know. It was just about _you_. I can't really..." I pause, trying to organize my thoughts into words. After a few moments I settle on the simplest thing I can find. "I have this thing in my chest." I remove my hand from his chest and press it against mine. "Do you know what I'm talking about?"

"Yes," he replies quietly.

"Do you have that?" I ask hesitantly.

He nods and moves my hand back to rest on the centre of his chest. It seems like I should be able to feel something in there, a physical presence of some kind. All I can feel is his skin, his skin that doesn't feel like skin at all, and the slight tingling I've started to get whenever my skin touches his.

"What is it?"

He looks thoughtful for a moment before he says, "I don't think it has a name, and I don't know where it comes from. It just is."

"Does it happen to other people?"

"Sometimes, but it's not universal. It's the kind of thing that affects everybody differently, I think."

"Does it have to do with you... the way you are?" Continually dancing around the big subject is starting to make me feel a little foolish, but it doesn't seem to be enough to motivate me into action.

"Possibly... probably. It's not really the kind of thing that gets studied," he replies.

Edward lightly runs the tips of his fingers down my bare arm, and I try not to laugh at the ticklish feeling. His fingers stop just before they reach my elbow, and he turns his head to the side to face towards the hallway.

"What?" I ask.

"Adelaide is making you something to eat. She wants you to come down soon."

"Oh?"

"Actually she's giving me quite a lecture about keeping you up here."

"I don't hear anything."

"That's a part of the eventually conversation," he says with a grimace.

"I guess I should go down then."

"Well, if you don't go down she's probably going to come up, and I really don't think that would be better."

"Fine, then I'll get up... soon."

"Well, as long as you've got a plan," he says, wrapping his arm around my waist.

00000

Sitting in the kitchen with Adelaide after Edward disappears down the hall is both surreal and awkward. Surreal because it feels like everything should be different after so much has changed inside me, but aside from it being later in the day, this seems the same as our daily breakfast. Awkward, because I'm fairly certain she has at least a general idea of what happened last night, and she knows more about Edward than I do. However, she seems fairly amused, which I actually think is more off-putting than revulsion or bewilderment would have been, mostly because I can't shake the idea that she may be laughing at me, despite the fact that that doesn't seem like something she'd do.

It isn't until she sets the food down on the table that I blurt out the question I've wanted to ask her for a while.

"You didn't really mean _ghost_ did you?"

She seems startled for a moment before she says, "Well, what do you mean by 'ghost'?"

"What do _you_ mean by it?"

"I already told you that."

I sigh. Her cryptic words about the remnants of death aren't particularly helpful.

"If you really want to know, I'm not the one to ask," Adelaide says.

"I don't want to know."

"Then why did you ask?"

"I don't _want_ to know, but I _need_ to know."

Adelaide looks at me carefully for a few moments before she mutters, "This is why I didn't get married."

00000

Edward is waiting for me in the hallway after lunch.

"I thought you might like to meet Johnny," he says, reaching out to take my hand.

"Oh, yes, I think I'd like that."

He smiles and leads me down the hallway, past the morning room to a door I've never been to before. After a brief knock he pulls me inside. The room is dark and a bit musty, but there's a moderately bright lamp on the bedside table. He's propped up in bed, and although he's got an impish smile on his face, his eyes don't seem as alert as they usually do.

"I'd say good morning, but it seems a bit late for that."

"Bella, this is Jonathan Adair. Jonathan, Bella," Edward says, ignoring Jonathan's comment.

"Good afternoon, Bella. Edward, you seem to be in a good mood today. I've always told him he'd be far more affable if he spent a little more time with women."

"Johnny," Edward says in a warning tone.

"What? I cleaned it up as much as I possibly could."

"You shouldn't have said anything at all," he replies stiffly.

He looks at me and mumbles, "Clearly I spoke too soon." Edward sighs in frustration. "Can't take a ribbing to save his life, sure sign of an only child... at least the first time around." He winks at me playfully.

"It may have been charming when you were a young man, but you're far too old to be a shameless flirt, especially with young women."

"I'm going to ignore the fact that you're a hell of a lot older than me and you've done more than flirt, and skip straight to the part where I tell you – You're never too old, Eddie."

"I had hoped you'd grown out of it."

"More like temporarily suppressed it to avoid the wrath of the all-knowing matron. She may have been an angel in many ways, but that woman could read things off people nobody should be able to tell. I lived in near constant fear that she'd catch me thinking dirty thoughts and mutilate one of the few parts of me still in working order after that exploding shell business. Feel free to put that in the book."

"That's not going in the book."

"Oh come on, I'm an old man with a dying wish."

"Pick something else, something less... tawdry."

"It wasn't that bad. I thought I was very subtle about it, classy even. There are much more... explicit ways I could've put it. That's one thing about the war: it did wonders for my vocabulary." He turns his head to look at me before he says, "You know, he's always been a bit of a wet blanket. I'd put the moves on you myself and save you from having to deal with him, but it wouldn't be right to have you falling in love with me right before I kick off. Your tender young heart might never recover."

"That's very considerate, Jonathan." I meant it to sound joking, but I'm a bit in shock from this strange person with such a familiar face, so it comes out dryer then I'd intended.

"Call me Johnny. It's been a long time since a pretty girl has called me Johnny. Adelaide doesn't count; I'm practically her uncle. Although she was quite the looker when she matured, not that I was... looking. She's almost as scary as her mother."

Edward shakes his head, but he smiles as he says, "Absolutely incorrigible."

"Oh, get out of here. I need to rest up for tomorrow morning."

"What's happening tomorrow?" I ask.

"The same thing that happens every morning... except this one, obviously," Jonathan replies.

"Are you still telling the story?"

"Of course."

"You realize I know it's Edward's story, right? You don't have to tell it anymore."

"I learned this entire story, spanning nearly a century, by heart, which took me _years_. I'm telling the damn story... even if some ungrateful people don't appreciate my dedication."

"Johnny, you know..." Edward starts.

"Oh, relax, kid."

"Kid? What happened to me being a hell of a lot older than you?"

"There's no room for consistency in paradoxes." He pauses for a moment before he adds, "I'm not even sure if that makes sense."

"You're tired. I'll come see you later," Edward says, before he starts to move towards the door.

"Goodbye, Johnny," I say with a small smile.

"I'll see you tomorrow. We're going to talk about how he started writing again after the war. It's a real barrel of laughs."

00000

We leave the house and end up walking down the treed path, raindrops tapping against the overhead leaves.

"Are you still writing?"

"I thought I'd put out one more book, and then that'll be it."

"What are you going to do when Ethan Church is finished with?" I ask hesitantly.

"Well, I'm giving Adelaide the Ethan Church money, and she's expressed an interest in traveling, so there was no point in me sticking around here. I had intended to go back to my family, to try to live with them again."

"But not anymore?"

"I really have no idea what I'm doing anymore."

**A/N:** Ethan Church has a thread on Twilighted - http://www(dot)twilighted(dot)?f=33&t=6621


	11. The Other

**A/N:** Beta'd by Miss Poison (Twilighted) and Feisty Y. Beden (FFn).

**The Other**

"... but I like to keep up on these things. Just last year I was going through the obituaries and found that a boy I'd dated in high school had died. I hadn't seen him for at least forty years, but I went to the funeral all the same. I was surprised how emotional I was about it. Time is funny; some things just stick with you. And then this year I was looking over the listings and noticed a familiar name on the engagement announcements page. I wasn't really sure it was the same Philip Dwyer until I read his parents' names. They used to go to the same church as us every Sunday, but I hadn't seen them in years, and right away I told my husband we should go visit them. I really do love weddings," says the woman in front of me. I don't remember her name.

I nod distractedly when she stops talking, making a generic humming noise in response. I press the heel of my hand against the centre of my chest, but it does nothing to alleviate the hollow ache.

"So, what is it that you do, dear?"

"I'm a translator."

"Oh, really? My niece once dated a nice man who did that for the UN. It didn't work out though. I don't know what went wrong. My sister only had good things to say about him. She lives in New York, you know. I could never do that. I went to visit her for a week last year, and I couldn't sleep a wink. I lost track of how many times I heard those sirens going by during the night. I've always been a very light sleeper, which really isn't a problem here, because we live in a very quiet neighbourhood, but..."

"I translate books, actually," I interrupt with a smile that feels more like a contorted grimace.

"I'm sorry?"

"I don't translate spoken words. I translate books."

"Oh. Well, I don't know anything about books. I've never been much of a reader, although my sister, not the one who lives in New York - this one lives in Scottsdale - she sends me those books by... oh what's his name? I was just talking about him the other day. Beautiful books, terribly sad though." My breath catches in my throat. "You have to wonder how one person can deal with having all of that in their head, but they are beautiful, in their own way. Ethan Church! That's the one. She gets all his new ones and then sends them to me when she's done."

I smile politely and nod, wishing Edward was here with me. I hadn't even thought to ask him to come. Despite all the time we've been spending together, there's still an otherness about him that doesn't seem compatible with things like airplanes and weddings. In my head he's inexorably linked to the verdant setting of Forks. In comparison, Phoenix seems too bright, too hot, and all the colours look washed out, like overexposed film. I find it almost impossible to imagine him being here.

Maybe it's best that I didn't invite him. I've never been one to be overly conscious of my appearance, but I hate the thought of him seeing me like this. My bridesmaids' dress is a shade of yellow that makes my paler-then-usual skin look sallow and waxen. I've been getting concerned looks all day. Of course, the fact that the latest evolution of the thing in my chest is causing even my neutral expression to look mildly pained probably isn't helping anything.

The wedding crept up on me, forcing me back to Arizona with a jarring lack of notice. If Adelaide hadn't mentioned it, I probably wouldn't have remembered the date until after it had passed. If I hadn't already agreed to be a bridesmaid, I probably would've stayed with Edward. I feel ridiculous here, like I'm out of place, pretending to be someone I'm not, and everyone else can tell.

The woman in front of me is still talking about something to do with her sister when the emcee calls everyone to order to announce the entrance of my mother with her new husband and her new last name.

00000

When I leave the reception everything is dark and shadowy at ground level, but the sky is an illuminated indigo blue. The music is still loudly blaring inside the hall, but the sound is muffled by the metal door that slams shut behind me.

Taking a deep breath of the warm night air, I try to clear the fuzziness from my head and ease the feeling of claustrophobia that was starting to creep up on me in the dark and stuffy hall. I want to get out of here and go somewhere I can be alone, but my apartment isn't a very appealing prospect. When I got there yesterday afternoon, instead of being familiar the space was alien. The feeling was distressing. The place that holds all my things, that I've considered to be my home for the last three years, is supposed to feel like it's mine, but instead I felt like a trespasser in someone else's life. It was painfully obvious that I had changed more than I thought in my time with Edward. In an effort to combat the feeling, I pulled all my books off the shelves and set them down in piles on the floor. Sitting cross-legged on the ground, surrounded by a loose circle of my books, I flipped through the pages, reading the familiar stories in fragments until I started to feel connected to my life here again. The feeling didn't carry over to the wedding.

Moving across the parking lot in my clicking heels, I don't seem to be walking as straight as I usually do. I don't think the issue is the shoes. I round the corner into a long driveway between two buildings that leads out to the street. There's a man standing just outside the mouth of the laneway; his face is turned slightly away, and he is statue-like in his stillness. If I'd never met Edward I might not have really noticed him. I likely would have avoided looking at him and followed my instinct to stay as far away from him as possible. He has the same kind of unnatural appearance as Edward, but the effect is completely different. His flat white skin and inhumanly perfect face seem threatening, but I can't look away.

It's not long before his body shifts and then stills again as he turns to look at me. His head is cocked to the side as he stares. His eyes are fixed points, pinning me in place like a collected butterfly. His mouth quirks into an odd, almost playful smile, before he slowly starts to walk towards me.

"Do you have any idea how long it's been since a human looked directly at me?" The cadence of his speech is a bastardized mix of accents from around the world, tumbling over each other to exert their influence over his words. His tone is light, almost conversational, like he's making small talk, but the way he says "human" is meaningful. To him I'm clearly an _other_: different, insignificant. "Forgive the cliché, but you must be either very brave or very stupid - or perhaps just drunk. That seems to result in both."

My heart is thumping, my palms feel damp, and my mind is screaming at me to leave, run, evade at all costs, but my body seems disinclined to move. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I'm aware of a twitching spasm starting up in my chest.

"You always look away, or around, or past, but never _at_ us. It seems illogical to me. Do you think we'll leave you alone, because you refuse to look us in the eye? Do you think it will save you? Do you _really_ think we care? Although I suppose it does make a difference, because I've already eaten, and yet here we are." Different, insignificant, _food_. He has stepped into the semicircle of pale yellow from the security light on one of the walls, and now I can really see him.

His skin is the colour of bone. His eyes are the colour of blood. He is death personified in non-human form.

_Death. Death. Death. Death._ The word throbs through my head in time with my panicked heartbeat.

He takes another step towards me, and my mind sharpens into specific thoughts. I'm going to die. It may be quick, relatively, but there will be pain. I should have told Edward that I love him. I should have told him that he is not, could never be Cathy, because no matter the outcome he wanted to do the right thing, and that does make a difference. I should have asked him what he is, because I don't want to find out like this.

There's a burning in my eyes that I think might be tears, but my body is going numb. My physical self-awareness is fleeing from my extremities and concentrating on my chest where my heart and the thing are pounding, thumping, twisting together until I can't tell them apart anymore. Maybe my heart will give out before he reaches me. Maybe I won't feel the pain.

His teeth glint in the light, and my mind screams again. _Run!_ But could I really outrun death? Edward can disappear in the blink of an eye. He did it in the hallway on my first night and in the library when he first spoke to me. Although _he_ seems to be taking his time, I'm sure he could be in front of me before I became aware that he'd moved, but where's the fun in that? He's a predator playing with his food, playing with me. An inhuman consumer of humans, a humanoid incarnation of death.

_I, Miss Swan, was birthed from death._

Not his mother's death, _Edward's_ death. Edward died and was reborn in death. Ideas and words and dark images from old movies bubble up half-formed in my brain.

I take a step backwards, landing unsteadily on the small heel of my shoe. I'm not sure whether I'm trying to retreat from the reality in front of me or the thoughts in my head, but it seems futile either way. He keeps coming closer and closer one slow step at a time, and my mind seems to enjoy taunting me just as much as he is.

"So tell me, what do you see?"

_Death._

I open my mouth, but only a shaky breath comes out.

He laughs and comes to a stop in front of me. I see his hand come up towards me, but I don't react until his fingers touch my neck, gliding backwards like they're going to grab hold. The contact causes me to jerk back, and I stumble again, falling against the alley wall. The porous brick scratches against my bare arms and catches at the material of my dress as I clumsily slide in the direction of the hall, my body moving on autopilot as my survival instincts belatedly kick in.

I don't make it far before he's in front of me again, hands pressed against the wall on either side of me, pinning me in place. I'm out of time.

He leans towards me, his eyes flicking over my face as he moves, studying me in my final moments. His attention shifts to my throat, his expression turning serious. His body tenses as his head moves towards my neck, and then... he's gone.

A sharp crack like stone slamming against stone cuts through the silence, and my body jumps. Across the laneway there's a crater of broken brick and mortar in the wall. Dust swirls around in the air. He's _gone_.

My shaking body crumples to the ground as my mind tries to understand what just happened. There's a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye, but it's gone when I turn. It happens again only seconds later, and it's followed by the sound of breaking brick. Another crater appears down the wall from me, and I realize he's not gone. He's just not alone anymore. Edward. Edward is here. I can feel him in my chest, but I can't see him.

There's another hard impact, against the ground this time, and I can feel the pavement shift and crack underneath me. In front of me, Edward finally appears, crouched over _him_. Edward's upper body wrenches, and there's a tearing sound reminiscent of my nightgown ripping when he undressed me in the gardens, before something round rolls and bounces away. It's _his_ head. It comes to a stop against the opposite wall, and all I can see is the perfect profile and ragged stump of a neck. Nausea squirms heavily in my stomach. Edward did that. Edward is capable of that.

He saved my life. He did that to save my life. He only wants to do the right thing.

Edward is holding the still, headless body to the ground underneath him. His teeth are bared, and I almost think I can see his throat vibrating with a sustained growl, but I'm not sure how reliable my perceptions are right now.

Minutes that feel like hours pass, and Edward doesn't move at all. Finally, his posture relaxes and his growling quiets, before he turns to look at me. The thing in my chest stutters and skips, or was that my heart?

He raises himself away from the body, and slowly, cautiously starts to approach me. What do I do now? The idea that Edward is in some way like that thing with cold eyes and a psychopathic mind is almost too much. This reality doesn't seem compatible with who I thought he was, and I can't fit them together the way they are. How much of the man I love will I have to give up to the reality inside of him? What does this make him?

Edward fluidly lowers himself into a relaxed crouch in front of me. He's just within reach of me, but the distance between us feels solid. He looks so sad, so scared, so broken. It's Edward, but is he _my_ Edward? Do I really know him?

"Bella?"

"What are you?" My voice sounds flat, resigned. Eventually has come, and there's no avoiding it now.

"I'm a vampire," he answers quietly, "but I don't feed off of people. I'm not _him_."

Vampire. Edward is a _vampire_.

"Adelaide called you a ghost." A slightly hysterical laugh escapes with the last word.

"She prefers to think of me as a ghost; ghosts don't have to survive off of anything."

"But you don't kill people."

"No. It's the connotations that bother her. The innate predatory nature, but that can be overcome. I have overcome it... or at least suppressed it, for the most part."

He wants to do the right thing. He saved my life. I would be dead right now if he hadn't come.

"How did you get here? You were in Washington."

"I was already in Phoenix. I flew in this evening." His voice drops as he adds, "I couldn't stand to be away from you any longer." I've been spending every hour I've been away from him wishing I hadn't left, so knowing that he feels the same way... I squeeze my eyes shut against the twisting pain in my chest. "Alice called when I was on my way to your apartment; she said I had to get to you."

"Alice?"

"Alice is a member of my family."

"She's like you?" How many are there?

"Yes, except she can see things that could happen in the future, based on the present."

"She saw me die?"

"No, she saw me find you." His words are vague, but the tone of his voice says _too late_. She saw him find me too late.

Edward reaches toward me slowly. My thoughts are still running circles around themselves, and I have no idea what to do or how I feel about this, but I don't have it in me to reject him. I think it would hurt me just as much as it would him, and I desperately need to feel connected to him again, to know that my Edward is still in there.

Edward's fingers gently brush against my cheek, but I flinch at the memory of different cold fingers on my neck. His face contorts, before he starts to retreat away from me. Something like panic hits me in the chest, and I push forward off the wall, grabbing hold of him before he moves out of my reach. Moving closer, I take hold of his shirt and rest my head against his shoulder, my forehead pressing against his cool, smooth neck. His arms wrap around my back, and he lets out a ragged breath against the top of my head, that almost sounds like a sob. I feel a fitful sense of calm overcome me.

"You need to get home, Bella," he mumbles into my hair.

I pull back to look at him and ask, "What about you?"

"This isn't finished yet." His head angles back to indicate the body behind him. "I'll come see you when it's done."

I nod and shakily get to my feet. Edward's skin is the same pure white as _his_, but it doesn't make me think of bleached bones, and his eyes aren't the colour of blood. Maybe his nature is death, but I do believe him when he says he tries to overcome it. He still has humanity in him, even if he isn't human anymore.

**A/N:** Ethan Church has a thread on Twilighted. The address is on my profile page.


	12. Eventually

**A/N:** Beta'd by Miss Poison (Twilighted) and Feisty Y. Beden (FFn).

**Eventually**

The cab ride home is a blur, and I stumble up an extra flight and a half of stairs before I realize that I've passed my floor. Once inside, I clumsily strip off my clothes on the way to the shower. In my peripheral vision, I vaguely notice the greyish stains and jagged rips in the pale yellow fabric as it drops to the floor.

I climb into the shower, my soapy fingers tangling in my pin-filled hair under the too-hot water. I yank the pins out in frustration, ignoring the sting of ripped out hairs as I let them fall to the bottom of the tub. I mindlessly complete the rest of my shower routine and then drop into bed, still soaking wet.

Even though I'm both mentally and physically exhausted, I sleep fitfully as my mind tries to deal with far too many things at once, which is why I'm not entirely sure I'm awake when I notice a strange smell pervading my room. It's smoky and sweet, almost like incense, but different in a way that I can't place.

Pulling myself out of bed, I walk to the living room in the dark. The thing in my chest is practically vibrating as I cross into the room and find a silhouette in front of the window.

"Edward?" I ask groggily. "Did I let you in?"

"You didn't lock your door, and I didn't want to wake you."

I nod, flipping on a side lamp as I make my way towards the couch, before curling up on the cushion.

"Did you...? What did you do?" The image of the decapitated head flashes back into my mind.

"I burned it." That's the source of that smoky smell, _him_ incinerated.

"How old?"

"What?"

"How old were you when you...when you were changed?"

"Seventeen. I was born in 1901 with the name Edward Anthony Masen. My parents called me Anthony to avoid confusion, because my father was named Edward too. My mother wanted to name me Anthony in the first place so that suited her just fine." He smiles a little bit when he says it, but his expression drops as he continues. "When I was in the hospital, my doctor, Carlisle Cullen, called me Edward. I didn't have it in me to correct him at the time, and it continued on after."

He said his doctor was his father. "Your doctor made you this way?"

"My mother asked him to. There was an epidemic of Spanish influenza at the time that killed thousands of people in Chicago. I vaguely remember my mother insisting that all the windows stay open and yelling at me for coming home in damp clothes. She worried a lot. I can only imagine how she would've been if I'd been able to enlist like I wanted to. In September my mother got sick, and then my father. I got sent to my aunt's, but it was too late, and I ended up in the hospital with them. My father died, and my mother followed, but not before she made Carlisle promise to _help_ me. She never actually said the words, but Carlisle was completely convinced that she somehow knew what he was, and that she wanted him to make me like him. I'm not so sure, but I do believe that if she had found out and she thought it would save me, she would've wanted that. So I've tried not to hold his interpretation against him."

"Your first book."

He nods, and his mouth flattens into a grimace. "It took me a long time to forgive her for that. I know she only wanted me to live, and I know she didn't really understand what she was asking, even if she knew what Carlisle was, but I never wanted this. I was barely conscious at the end, so he couldn't ask me. If he had... in my lesser moments I'm absolutely sure that I would've chosen human death, but the fact is, I don't really know. I was seventeen and terrified of dying before my life had really begun. Sometimes I think if _I_ had made the choice then maybe I would've adjusted better. Other times I think that it wouldn't have made that much of a difference, except that it would've been _my_ decision I resented. I don't think it's possible to fully comprehend what that choice means before the change happens. It wasn't until the first time that I felt the urge to kill a complete stranger that I truly understood, and then I started to hate what I'd become.

"I've always felt like a monster trying to play a man, a good man. My family accepted me as something more than a predator, but to be accepted as a good person suppressing an internal monster by others who are doing the same is... well I never felt like they were a particularly reliable source. There was always the thought that maybe they believed in me because they wanted to believe it was possible for them, which created too much doubt for me to feel secure. Constance, Adelaide's mother, was the first person who made me really believe I could actually _be_ a good person, not just act like one. She made me think that maybe what I had become didn't define me as a person, which is exactly what Carlisle has been trying to hammer into my head for ages. He wasn't nearly as aggressive about it though. Honestly I think Constance was just sick of me 'sulking like a petulant child,' as she put it. That was one of her more refined phrasings."

"She meant a lot to you," I say quietly. I already knew she did. He told me he loved her when he showed me the angel memorial, but I didn't understand why she was so important to him then.

"Yes, she was a very important part of my life while she was in it. She's still important to me, but so many things in life feel transitory to me. Of course everything in life is transitory - even stars and planets aren't eternal - but humans rarely feel the full effects of this in their lifetime. Vampires aren't capable of natural death. We don't age or deteriorate. We aren't susceptible to diseases, and starvation, although highly unpleasant, doesn't kill us. There is some conjecture that prolonged stillness could lead to solidification, but that's a time frame of hundreds, if not thousands, of years.

"I've lived for over a hundred years. Theoretically, I have thousands of years ahead of me. No matter how important those years were to me, they're still a very small part of my life, time-wise."

Thousands of years. It's impossible for me to fathom living that long, seeing that much in one lifetime. Even if I know him for the rest of my life, I'll still only be a brief part of his, barely more than Constance, relatively speaking. For the majority of his life he will talk about me in the past tense.

The thing in my chest wrenches so hard it makes my breath catch.

"Bella?" Suddenly he's in front of me, and his hand is over mine on my chest.

"What is this thing? What's happening to me, Edward?"

"It brings people together."

"What does that mean?"

He squeezes his eyes shut for a moment before he looks up at me. "When Carlisle met Esme and when Rosalie met Emmett they felt... it wasn't exactly the same, but it was something of a similar nature. It pulled them together, and then, over time, they fell in love."

"Esme is...?

"Esme is my mother, who Carlisle met after he turned me. Rosalie is my sister, and Emmett is my brother who was brought into the family at Rosalie's request."

"Your sister? The two year old you antagonized?"

"Well, she wasn't _really_ two," he chuckles.

"Right."

"Carlisle met Esme when she was brought into the hospital with a broken leg. He was different immediately. He barely even talked to her, and they were only together for a matter of hours, but it changed him. I underestimated it though. He left and didn't see her again for ten years, and it made me think it was the kind of thing that one could simply walk away from. I knew he thought of her far more than he did other people we met, but thoughts and feelings are not the same thing. I knew his thoughts, but I couldn't tell how he felt, and so I didn't understand."

"In what way did you know his thoughts?"

"I could hear them. I can hear practically everyone's."

"You can read people's minds?" I ask incredulously. Why this is more startling to me than the fact that he's a vampire, I'm not entirely sure, but there is a sense of invasion along with the shock. Has he been listening to my thoughts this entire time?

"I don't like that phrasing. It implies an action, as if I'm doing it on purpose, when really it's largely passive. I can't control it. Often I ignore people's thoughts, but they're still there in the back of my mind. At times during the war I had the inner voices of hundreds of young men echoing in my head. It wasn't the first time I'd been around large groups of people, but these were scared, angry, traumatized people, and sometimes I was incapable of pushing away their thoughts. More than once I had to leave, because I couldn't deal with having that in my head."

"Everybody's thoughts?" I squeak. Would there even be a point in attempting to censor my thoughts at this point?

"Not yours. I can hear the thoughts of everybody I've met except yours."

"Is that true? Because it sounds very convenient."

"You think I'm lying?" he asks with an amused smile.

"I think if you could hear my thoughts, then you'd know that learning you can hear what I'm thinking would make me upset when I'm already... unsettled, and I think you might want to avoid that."

"So the answer is _yes_."

"Sort of."

"I'm not lying. I can't hear you at all. It's actually quite frustrating." I'm still not entirely sure I believe him, but he does seem genuine, so I decide to let it go for now. "Anyway my point is, I could hear Carlisle's _thoughts_ about Esme and how he felt, but I couldn't actually experience what he was feeling. My perception of this draw was filtered through his thoughts, and even in his thoughts Carlisle is very restrained.

"When he turned Rosalie, he did it because he thought I felt something like that for her. It was a misunderstanding. I stared at her a lot, and he noticed. I did find her fascinating. It was almost unfathomable to me that someone could spend such a huge part of their life focusing on whether or not their dress complemented their eyes, and trying to get people she would never deign to speak with, to admire her. In fairness to her, our only contact was during social events, and that was the general tenor of thoughts, but she seemed more preoccupied with her looks than most. Carlisle started asking me odd questions after he noticed my attention, questions about how I felt, but somehow he managed to almost entirely keep those thoughts from me. When he found her dying he made her like us, because he thought she was my mate. Rosalie's never really forgiven me for that."

"Mate?"

"That's what we call our partners. Vampires mate for life, and considering our lifespan is indefinite, it's a huge commitment."

"But _mate_ seems like an odd choice of words. It's very... animalistic."

"Vampires, like humans, are animals. Actually the lack of a beating heart probably makes that debatable, but biological categories aside, we are animalistic, even more so than humans. Newborn vampires are notoriously primal. The only other experience I had with the beginning stages of this pull was through Rosalie. She had only been changed a little over a year when she met Emmett, and her intense anger made her maturation a slow process. If it hadn't been for her immediate feelings towards Emmett, I'm sure she would've killed him. I didn't think it would be that strong for me, partly because all her feelings were very intense at that time, which made her emotional and impulsive, but also because it was a life-or-death situation. If she hadn't brought him to Carlisle, he would've died, and that would've been the end of it. An immediate decision was required, and there was little room for logic and reasoning. I'm not saying she made the wrong decision. She's never regretted it, and he's certainly never held it against her. I'm just saying that I believed her sudden pull towards Emmett was exacerbated by intense emotion and a decision with final results, one way or the other. I thought it would be something smaller, something manageable, but obviously I was very wrong."

"Did you know this was going to happen? Is that why you picked me?"

"Yes." My breath catches at the simple, definitive answer.

"How did you know?" It's almost a whisper. How far can I push this before it becomes too much for me?

"The publishers decided to put out a new set of editions, and they wanted to redo the translations. I'm very particular about translations. When a story is first written, it's all in my own words, but when somebody else converts those words I lose a certain amount of control over them, so I insist on choosing who will do it.

"They sent me boxes of books for examples. I went through them fastidiously, making careful, organized lists. Then I came across your _Translator's Introduction _at the beginning of one of the books, and this feeling started to develop. I wasn't entirely certain it was there at first. I thought I might be imagining things. I've always felt that it was fairly inevitable that at some point a vampire who spends most of their time alone would go at least a little insane. I thought that's all it was. When I looked at your other books, read the other introductions, the feeling started to grow, and I wanted you to work on my books."

My introductions are the only personal thing I add to my translations, the only parts that are truly _my_ words. My boss teasingly refers to them as my "love letters." The idea that my words would cause even a fraction of the feeling I got from his is completely, overwhelmingly astonishing.

"I didn't have a reason, at least not a rational one; I just _wanted_. I tried to be logical and objective about it. I took notes on everything. I dissected every paragraph, every sentence meticulously. I was obsessed with justifying my choice. It wasn't hard. You're very good at what you do, but it didn't make a difference. The harder I tried to legitimize my choice, the clearer it became that none of that made any difference. You were certainly qualified, but in the end, the reason I wanted it to be you was because I felt this illogical pull towards you, a woman I had never met. I wanted some kind of connection to you."

"Did you punch my book?"

His face freezes with his mouth open and his eyes wide. "I... uh... it was very frustrating."

"So the answer is _yes_."

"The table underneath came out far worse. The top cracked right down the middle."

"Well then I guess you shouldn't have punched my book."

He laughs and reaches forward to touch my cheek. "I like it when you smile. Everything seems to be so serious. I just want you to be happy," he says. Something in my chest clenches, but this time it's not that feeling; it's my heart.

He sighs and pulls his hand back before he starts to talk again. "You turned down the offer, which I understand. My books aren't for everyone. Even I don't really like them. I let it go, or at least I tried to. I was still a little bit in denial about what it really was. I knew the pull existed. I knew theoretically there had been, was, or would be someone in the world who could cause that feeling in me, but I didn't think it was possible to get that feeling without having any kind of contact with the person. Although I suppose reading something that a person wrote with words they really mean does create a connection, though it would be a one-sided form.

"When it came time to start my biography, to finish with Ethan Church, I wanted you again. I didn't take no for an answer this time. It felt like my last chance to meet you. It wasn't my intention to become involved. I knew you were human, and I didn't want to drag you into my life. I just wanted some kind of connection to you. I was planning to stay on the fringes. I thought I might pretend to be Ethan Church's visiting great-nephew, if I decided to make my presence known to you at all. I found myself unusually indecisive. I still wasn't sure what I was going to do when the day of your arrival came.

"I was out hunting in the woods when you got to the house, so I didn't see you until that night. I'm sure you remember how that went."

"You growled at me," I say.

"I did. I'm sorry, but it wasn't... I wasn't going to hurt you. I was overwhelmed. Before that point, the feeling was still fairly light, but as soon as I saw you, it slammed into my chest. I couldn't handle it, feelings of that intensity coming on so suddenly. I almost lost control. I don't know what would have happened if I had. I don't think I could've done anything to _you_, but I'm sure whatever did happen would've been destructive. I scared you enough as it was.

"I knew the second you became aware of me, and you were obviously terrified. It hurt, I mean it _physically_ hurt me, to know that I scared you. That allowed me to pull my shattered control together enough to leave. I ran for days. The feeling lessened, but it didn't go away.

"I ended up at my family's current home. I was hoping Carlisle might be able to give me some helpful advice, but he didn't. He tried, but I really wasn't in the mindset for long discussions and careful consideration. I just wanted to come back, but my plan was out the window, and I didn't know what I would do when I got here. Being in a house full of mated pairs didn't exactly help my emotional turmoil. I wasn't able to come to any kind of solution. I didn't think I could easily walk away anymore, but I still didn't think bringing you into my life would be a good idea.

"The first night in the gardens was the night I got back. I went to your room to see you, but you started to wake up so I left, and then you followed me outside. The pull wasn't as strong as it was in the hallway, but I was still overwhelmed by it. I couldn't even speak. And then I couldn't stay away.

"I was still trying to keep my distance, trying to get to know you without revealing too much of myself. Then you came tearing out into the gardens, and you held your chest like you were breaking apart, and I knew you felt it too. It was too late to walk away. I'd gotten too close, and I didn't regret it at all. I am sorry that I caused you pain. I thought I was doing the right thing, but my intentions and their results are often two separate things."

He seems to be finished speaking, and I feel like I should say something, but I have absolutely no idea what. My body is tired, my mind is overflowing, and my emotions seem to have shut down. I feel heavy and numb.

"What happens now?" I ask.

"That's entirely up to you."

I was afraid he was going to say that.

"I think I need to go to sleep."

00000

The smell stalls me in the doorway. No matter how alien the places of my old life feel to me now, that smell of old books is still familiar, comforting.

"There you are. I was wondering what happened to you," Henry says from behind the counter.

"Work," I answer simply with a small smile before heading into the aisles. In the past the book shop has always helped me to think, allowed me to work through the problem in the back of my mind.

I wander down the aisles, trying to capture the feeling I used to get from being here, from connecting with the books, but I can't seem to find that place. I walk aimlessly without seeing the books; my fingers on the spines serve the purpose of guiding me rather than connecting me. I feel detached, mindless.

Something like static electricity sparks in the tips of my fingers, and I snap to attention to find that I'm touching Edward's books. The ones I took to my apartment have been replaced with a few I haven't read. I have the urge to take one down and read it, absorb it, but I know that it isn't really the book I want.

I hear the door open and close at the front of the shop, and then footsteps walking towards me. Even though I don't look, I know that it's him.

"Somehow I ended up in front of your books. This thing is like a magnet."

"It would fade eventually... if you wanted it to. It's only a nudge, or maybe more like a violent shove, but either way, it can't force you stay where it puts you. You can't treat it like an obligation or an insurmountable compulsion. It's a choice, one that needs to be made carefully."

"What is the choice?" I ask, turning around to face him.

He stares at me pensively for a moment, before he says, "You could tell me to leave."

"I don't think I want to."

"I could stay with you while you live out your life." He pauses, shutting his eyes tightly as he roughly rubs his forehead. "Or..." His eyes open, and he stares intently into mine. "Or you could come with me."

"What exactly do those entail?"

"Maybe we should go somewhere else. I think this is a conversation better had at your apartment."

I shake my head. "I like it here."

Edward sighs and looks towards the front of the store. I'm fairly certain he's going to bring it up again, so I sink down onto the dirty carpet with the books at my back and wait for him to join me.

"You're very stubborn," he says, sitting next to me. Our arms are almost touching. I inch closer so that my bare arm brushes against his shirt sleeve.

"I like it here."

"So you said. This carpet is disgusting."

"Ignore the carpet. You're supposed to be talking."

"Okay, but if anyone comes back here we're going, all right?"

"Fine."

"If I stay with you then you can do whatever you want. You could keep your job and your apartment, and everything else in your life. You could move to England, Australia, France, Italy, or anywhere else. You could go somewhere with a language you don't know and learn a new one by immersion. You could work or do nothing, as you choose. Basically you could do anything you wanted with your life and I would be there with you.

"You would remain human, which I do consider to be a positive thing, but it's not without some serious drawbacks. Obviously as a human you would age and one day die, while I won't do either. You would be vulnerable, both to biology and the external world, which means there would be no knowing how long we would have together."

"You would live a long time after me," I say, drawing my knees up against my chest.

"Theoretically, until the end of the world or at least until the blood supply ran out."

"Would you even remember me at that point?"

He smiles softly and says, "I forget very few things, and you definitely wouldn't be one of them."

"What would you do after?"

"I don't know. I suppose I could go back to my family, but I think living with them after you would be harder than it was before I found you. Eventually it might be possible though."

"That sounds very lonely."

"Maybe I could get a pet," he responds drily.

"I'm being serious. I don't want you to be lonely."

"I'd still have my memories," he says. "It'd be better than nothing."

I press my forehead against my knees and squeeze my legs tighter against me.

"That's not exactly ideal," I say, raising my head to rest my chin on my knees.

"Very few things in life are. All that matters is that it's worth the pain."

"That almost sounded optimistic."

"I prefer to think of it as realistic."

"So, what's our other option?"

"You could become like me... I could make you like me. It's a very painful process. Our teeth are very sharp, so you don't really feel much when they go in, but we don't have fangs so the wound is larger, and it does pinch. The majority of the pain comes from the venom vampires have in our mouths."

"Venom like a snake?" I ask with surprise.

"Not exactly. It _is_ lethal, but it's more transformative than poisonous, and it brings on a very different form of death. The venom is what changes a person into a vampire. Once it gets into the bloodstream it starts to aggressively alter the cells of the body, all except the blood cells. Those are needed to nourish the dead body cells. The body feeds on itself until it starts feeding on something, or someone else."

I shudder, and he puts his hand on my back. "And that hurts?"

"It's extremely painful. The venom makes you feel like you're burning from the inside out. It radiates and fluctuates until you feel like it's never going to end. In reality, it takes about three days for the process to finish."

"_Three days?_"

He nods. "It's not something I want you to have to go through, but at the end of it all you would be invulnerable to almost everything, and you would be immortal, like me. We would have a lot more time together, and the possibility of accidentally hurting you physically wouldn't be an issue anymore, but you would have to disassociate yourself from your old life, leave everyone you know behind. You would have the urge to hurt people, to kill strangers for their blood. There's no avoiding that unless you completely avoid people, but you could learn to control yourself with time.

"The members of my family have worked very hard to overcome their nature, and now they're able to live amongst humans. They tend to move every few years and live in houses with some isolation and proximity to hunting grounds, like forests. They don't get too close to other people, but they work, and shop, and have hobbies like everybody else. Carlisle even works in hospitals.

"The change affects the body internally and externally. As I said, the body's cells die, which means vampires can't reproduce. The skin becomes... well, like my skin," he says, holding his hand out in front of him. "I used to have a scar on my hand - I don't remember why - but it disappeared when I turned. The skin evens out, becomes uniform and smooth. Nails, hair... everything stops growing. You change in subtle yet profound ways, and then you never change again. You have no idea how much I wish I'd cut my hair when I had the chance."

"I would look different?" I ask.

"We look the way we do as a way of trapping our prey. Humans often find it difficult to look directly at us. Something subconscious tells them to avoid it, but once they do, they can't look away. So yes, your appearance would change. It's mostly little aesthetic changes, such as the evening out of the skin, and some shifting of the facial structure. Your eyes would also change. At first they would be red from your own human blood, but after a while the animal blood will make them more of a gold colour. You would still look like you, just slightly altered."

"So, I would still recognize myself?"

"Yes, but the changes would be noticeable, which is a large part of the reason why you would have to cut ties with the people who know you now."

I find the idea of changing like that, the possibility of looking in the mirror and seeing someone else unsettling, but it's a relatively small part of the equation. Leaving behind everyone I know would be difficult, but I can't think of anyone I would stay for.

"When you asked me to stay with you, what did you mean? What do _you_ want, Edward?"

"I meant..." Edward pauses and stares ahead with a conflicted look on his face. "I don't want to lose you. I want you with me for as long as possible."

"What does that _mean_?"

"I love you, Bella. I want better for you, but whatever will make you happy, I'll do. I'll leave, or I'll watch you age, or I'll... whatever you want."

It's not death that should be feared, it's dying. Dying is pain, and waiting. The amounts vary each time, but there's really no such thing as a good combination, unless you don't have either. Three days of intense pain is far from ideal, but I think death with Edward would be worth it.

My stomach is a fluttery mess, and I can feel my heart beat in my throat.

"I love you," I whisper, turning to lean my forehead against his. "I don't want to let go."

His face is very serious for a moment, and then he smiles, and it's ecstatic and excited and relieved. He kisses me, pressing his lips against mine as his hand cradles my cheek.

When he pulls away, I say, "I think that was the answer you were hoping for."

"I don't think I could stand to watch you die, knowing you'd never wake up again."


	13. Epilogue Swan Song

**A/N:** Beta'd by Miss Poison (Twilighted) and Feisty Y. Beden (FFn).

**Epilogue - Swan Song**

_TheCongregation(dot)net_

Ethan Church: Fact versus Fiction

I know there are some people out there who have taken the announcement of Ethan Church's death and the recent publication of his biography as proof that he was in fact one individual person, but I find these events cementing my belief in the exact opposite.

Firstly, the announcement had _no information,_ and therefore proves nothing. The statement made via his publishers said that he had died, but not how, where, or even when. It's completely impossible to fact check, because it doesn't contain any facts. I could announce that I taught a monkey to speak English, but that hardly makes it true. As far as I'm concerned, it was only the official end of the Ethan Church saga.

Secondly Isabella Swan, the biographer of the infamously reclusive author is not a writer. If I had spent the last seventy-plus years successfully guarding all remotely personal information about myself from the public and then decided to narrate my biography to someone, I would hire a biographer or some kind of writer, at the very least a journalist. The fact that a translator with no known experience in writing was chosen says to me that she has some other connection to the entity known as Ethan Church.

And now, at the time when most authors would be doing press for their best-selling book, she's nowhere to be found. I understand her quitting her job - I would have too - but she's completely gone. According to an article I read earlier this week, even her mother doesn't know where she is, just that she said goodbye before she left. It seems that somebody likes to stay out of the spotlight... my how familiar that sounds.

I think I've made it pretty clear over the years what my opinions are regarding Ethan Church. I've explained at length my reasons for believing that Ethan Church is a name used by a succession of different authors, and I'll spare you from having to read all that again here. As far as I'm concerned there has never been much indication of who the authors are, but I think we may have been presented with a name, Isabella Swan.

The last in the line of Ethan Church authors would be responsible for wrapping up the franchise, and who better to pen the biography written to that end than that last author. It eliminates the necessity of bringing in an outsider, it gives them complete control, and it's a one-time chance for them to put their real name on something connected to Ethan Church. This would explain why Isabella Swan, in-house translator for the publishers of Ethan Church's novels, was chosen to write the biography. I think it also makes sense that Isabella Swan would not be working as an author under her own name; after all, you can't compare the latest Ethan Church books with her own style of fiction writing if there are no examples to look at, and I think it's pretty clear that leaving no evidence is the MO of this operation.

_Reply to "Ethan Church: Fact versus Fiction" - _

Maybe they didn't release the info about his death because they didn't want people tracking him down. Clearly the man appreciated his anonymity. Why would they stop protecting his privacy now?

_Reply to "Ethan Church: Fact versus Fiction" - _

I've always been very sceptical of the theories swirling around Ethan Church, but I have to say that the fact that his biography didn't have any names was more than a little odd. The only time "Ethan Church" appeared in print was in the title. At the very least, they avoided using it because it's not his real name, but the topic of a pseudonym was never broached. Where's the explanation for that?

_Reply to "Ethan Church: Fact versus Fiction" - _

I agree with pretty much everything, but I'm surprised you didn't talk about the content of the biography, specifically the connection between elements of his biography, and plot points and themes in his novels. If Ethan Church was a name used by more than one person then was the biography an amalgamation of their lives? Were the novels inspired that much by their experiences or are these connections a nod to the fictional nature of the book?

_Reply to "Ethan Church: Fact versus Fiction" - _

If Swan worked at his publishers, she may have met EC there and been persuaded by his ideas about privacy, or if it's true that there has been more than one author, then the latest one could have met her there, and they ran away together. Given that we know almost nothing for a fact, I think it's impossible for us to definitively narrow down the possibilities of what could have happened.

_Reply to "Ethan Church: Fact versus Fiction" - _

Dude, you've thought about this way too much.

_Reply to "Ethan Church: Fact versus Fiction" - _

Have you read the new review for Church's soon-to-be released last book? It seems like it's going to be a significantly departure from his others. Perhaps that's an indication that Isabella has started and ended her EC career with his last book.

I won't quote the whole thing, but I feel this section is particularly significant:

"_Although stylistically consistent, I would describe Ethan Church's last novel, _Swan Song_ as hopeful while his others are nothing less than heartbreaking. This beautiful and poignant story about the conclusion of a troubled life carries a message throughout that will shock most, if not all, of Church's fans: Death is not the end, but a new beginning."_


End file.
